Walking on sunshine

I wonder how much I can trust the person we gave my old job if he didn’t even bother to change the password.

Anyway, this is Rick.

Many years ago, a path was cut through the woods owned by the local land baroness, Margaret Ann Goldsmith.

After the path was cut, TVA power poles were raised and strands of wiring strung high in the air like trapeze artists use, arching from one pole to another over hilltops and roadways.

At first, I was sad to see the forest cut down.

Then, the scientist in me stepped forward, taking notes on the change in flora and fauna.

Today, as I walked underneath the lines that are there only in case of emergency and note used regularly, I found a ripe passionfruit.

But this was a rare subspecies, the “Nectar of the Gods,” the local natives called it.

I hold it in my hands.

The aroma alone is making my writing difficult.

I would venture to guess that driving is inadvisable at this time.

I stood and watched bumblebees fumble into the passionfruit flowers on the vine and fly away drunk.

Would I have found this natural gateway drug if Margaret Ann hadn’t sold the rights to TVA to remove swathes of mature trees and underbrush from her land, just barely a stone’s throw from where her father sold property to the builder of my cabin in the woods?

I feel giddy, mischievous, desiring to pull a joke on someone.

Should I change the password of this account and see how the person who took over my network responds?

You don’t always have to be taller and stronger to win…hehe…we rarely forget the lessons we learned the hard way, rather than reading about them in books!

Late-Night Advert

Are you tired of giving your business away to a government that scares and intimidates  you with doomsday predictions?

Do you question why you convinced your friends and family to fund your venture when a large part of the profits you’d like to share with them goes to fund pork-barrel projects from which you don’t benefit?

Well, don’t change that channel!!!

Call the number below and we’ll show you how to:

  • Incorporate your business as an offshore shell holding company
  • Have no employees, thus avoiding personnel tax accounting (in fact, you won’t have to hire accountants at all!)
  • Own no assets and have no liabilities
  • Protect the integrity of your name as a generous philanthropist to your peers

Wouldn’t you like to sleep soundly knowing that the time and money you sacrificed, losing precious hours with your little ones and your first second third fourth spouse have not gone to waste?

Stop texting your BFF and make that free Internet phone call to us right now.  We have outsourced VOIP telephone operators sitting in hot warehouse conditions waiting to take your call.

For one low setup fee and a wee bit of your monthly income, we’ll ensure you have no trouble with the laws and regulations of every country, municipality and political entity that’s trying to take your precious cash away from your attempt to give an honest wage to honest workers, and an ROI for those business associates who, to coin a phrase, are about to bust some kneecaps if they don’t get paid because they don’t care about your excuse that you have to pay taxes and licence fees to your government.

Thanks to us, you’ll be sailing around the world, free from dilapidated bridges, malnourished unemployables, empty art museums and other relics of a time when people had no choice but to form businesses that were forced to turn over their profits for the sole purpose of propping up unfair socialistic governments keen on shoving your face to the grindstone and emptying your cashbox for their pet reelection projects.

Don’t delay.  Your future and the future of your darling children depends on making that call.  Who knows, your fifth spouse may turn out better than all the rest once you have real money to burn!

Hole Punchers and Drive-Thru Windows

“Yes, yes…what is it, Rick?  I thought you were harvesting fungi and making algae soup for breakfast this morning.”

“Well, I was looking at the growth patterns of vines in the woods this morning, paying attention to capillary action, when I saw a branch of the future you might want to tell my…I mean, your readers.”

“Rick, Rick, Rick.  How can I do that?  I’ve already told them you’ve retired and here you are, still setting up your supercomputer to extend prediction paths out into the forest.  That doesn’t sound like you’re retired to me.”

“‘You young whippersnappers!’  Why, I ought to give you a good whoopin’ for backtalking me but then you are taller and stronger.”

“Oldtimers.  Geez.  Look, am I or am I not in charge of your network?”

“Let’s just say you were handpicked for the job.  Kinda like the way we maneuvered the population of the United States to put a man who had an African Muslim father and Caucasian Christian mother into the White House.  Which goes with one of these future predictions I see.  The way the vines tell it, now that we’ve secured a member of the Muslim Brotherhood as president of Egypt, we need to convince one of the U.S. President’s daughters to marry a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, thus cementing the bond between the U.S., and thus the West, and the Middle East.  It’s the only longterm way to secure peace within certain circles of the Muslim community and get rid of terrorist breeders within their ranks.  And if they adopted a Chinese baby, that’d perfect the deal!”

“Man, you and your wildlife.  I suppose the ants were talking to you again today, weren’t they?”

“Now that you mention it…”

“Naw, forget it.  I’ve got my own show to run.  You want this gig, you gotta take it from me!”

Rick says to thank Nancy for the smile and laugh she shared this morning.

Fast Food News

Hey, movie fans, this is Neau Tahm Toulouse here with Entertainment Tweetly.

In political news, the governor of Tennessee today signed legislation banning scratch-n-sniff cards in children’s toys.  The legislation is called the “gateway drug prevention” bill by the press.  The governor countered that the new bill also contains subsections that approve the issuance of government IDs like social security numbers and voting cards but not driver’s licences to online personalities, keeping kids more strongly glued to their gaming devices in the hope that obsessive video gaming will act as a form of abstinence from physical contact with other humans, let alone any gateway sexual activity such as breathing the same air as another young adolescent in the room with you.

The Solicitor General has already posted a notice that the new Tennessee bill will probably be challenged in lower courts, so the Supreme Court took the preemptive move to issue an immediate comment about the Tennessee legislative act, stating that with one state recognising the legal right of virtual citizens, corporations now have the right to vote in elections, the corporations’ voting power (i.e., number of votes per voting district) proportionate to their monetary size, number of employees, superPAC donations and former legislators/judges/executives on their consultant/lobbyist payrolls and/or board of directors.

The governor, son of the founder of a large corporation, responded, “He who laughs last usually has his vast wealth in offshore accounts and trust funds.”

I caught Julia Roberts in a moment of regret and sadness during a recent interview, who was bemoaning the fact that she’s almost forgotten and reduced to playing the role of mean, wrinkled witches because she’s considered past her prime.  She admitted that she had wanted to perform nude or topless scenes in film but had been discouraged by her agent because Julia’s breasts are asymmetrical in shape and audiences weren’t ready for mainstream stars to have imperfect bodies displayed larger-than-life.  I only had my cell phone, which has a lousy microphone but I believe she also said, “younger actresses are lucky — audiences are so jaded they don’t pay attention to nudity anymore, as common as it is on the Internet — exhibitionism is expected, not shocking.  Getting a job via the casting couch has changed, too, now that women are sitting in the director and producer chairs these days.”  Julia wouldn’t elaborate when I asked her for details about that last comment.

This is Neau Tahm Toulouse, returning to his hopping spot in the French Quarter.  I gotta take a break and read some real literature.  This pop news reportin’ is ruinin’ my vocabulary and eloquent speechmakin’.

Lookie, lookie, lookie

In the continuing saga of “life finds a way,” we take you into a town called Sauceburg, where children are hooked up to indoor gaming devices or texting tablets, well protected from the scorching ultraviolent rays of the hot sun.

Deep into the labyrinthine lanes, streets, courts, roads and sidewalk-lined, curbed, cobbled, paved and concreted vehicle access paths of suburban housing estates.

Where, except on Mondays and Thursday, when lawn maintenance crews cut, sweep, mow, and blow landscape material, hauling the unapproved composting contents away, babies are raised, teenagers tolerated and adults get their weekly five-minute breaks from the horrors of reality.

Otherwise, during the day, relative quiet hangs in the air, hardly a soul in sight of patrolling drones.

At night, sleep.

Occasionally, a raucous sound pierces the peaceful dreams of parents, driving the stake of fear through their hearts!

Oh my God, Jasmyn!  Drunken young adult drivers weaving through the neighbourhood!!!

Quick! Press the button that lowers your curbside mailbox into its protective underground vault, safe from the screeching tires and solid bumpers of SUVs out of control!

What did you say?

You didn’t follow the Joneses and buy the latest in home protective services, including the Postal Service Access System 3000 that only allows preauthorized, certified delivery of mail and small packages to the pop-up mailbox, activated by the security badges worn by prescreened postmen (and women! (and robots!)), which, after delivery, lowers itself automatically and attaches to the underground conveyor that passes your mail through metal detectors, bomb sniffers, white powder zappers and pest control fumigators to the comfort of your home, your castle, the virtual womb that encases you and your family, well out of reach of those who intend only harm and malice?

Well, that’s too bad.

Because, in that case, this is you:

The Mailbox – Chapter Two

Stay tuned to what happens when your neighbours are in too big of a hurry to investigate the manufacture of mailboxes they stick into the ground because the suburban covenant says they have to have one despite all their correspondence flying back and forth electronically.

Ship’s log

17 June 1987, 17:53

I have entered a new adventure in learning (for which my wife and I have given one hundred and seventy-seven American dollars).  This adventure is entitled Sociology 480 – Society of the Future.  The other members of this adventure will share the ideas we bring to the class and the ideas of the members of the Worldwatch Institute who have issued “A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society,” entitled State of the World 1987.

= = = = = = = = = =

17 June 1987

Dr. Donald Tarter, instructor, Sociology of the Future

  • For the next 25 years, NOBODY CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE!!!
  • Doesn’t stop us from asking, “What if…?”  “What can happen?”
  • Some have made bold predictions in science, literature and behavioural studies:
    • Carl Sagan
    • Arthur Clarke
    • B.F. Skinner
  • For instance, Sagan predicts that survival over the next 100 years for endangered species is less than 10%.

Analyzing the Pressures of Population, especially ours:

  • Population factors such as growth rates, supply and demand for resources
  • Energy alternatives — availability of supplies
  • Mineral resources
  • Agricultural resources — can we grow enough?

= = = = = = = = = =

29 June 1987 20:20

A visit by Dr. Carl Sagan to Huntsville, Alabama, to discuss “Star Wars or Mars.”

Leaving this planet

  • Application of rocketry
    – developed by Chinese
    – developed into instruments of death and destruction by Europeans
    60,000 nuclear weapons
    1 submarine can destroy 192 cities
    “A central exchange” – ~200 million to 2 billion killed on tight nuclear winter — destruction of agriculture; starvation, destruction of ozone layer would bring about equivalent of large-scale AIDS
    You cannot trust estimates of probability of failure when the stakes are high
  • Solutions
    “Star Wars” a/k/a SDI (strategic defense initiative)
    Render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete” — President Reagan
    If simultaneous deployment by both sides were possible then the shield would be feasible
  • Cons
    Porosity — one Senate group predicts 16% of Soviet weapons destroy
    10% getting through means 1000 Soviet weapons which would wipe out America
    U.S. is invaded daily by small aircraft carrying the weight but not the density of nuclear weapons
    Decoys and penetration aids, low flying (depressed) flight paths, increased number of warheads built by Soviets
    Computer program “battle management system” to detect and destroy the nuclear warheads would be too complex to design and debug
    If U.S. had first strike then Stars Wars could wipe out remaining Soviet nuclear weapons
    Would cost $2 trillion U.S. dollars
    Some scientists refusing to be involved in SDI — ~10,000 in number
    Estimated that $600M spent on SDI in Huntsville
    Not worth the cost even if money was available
    National security should be measured by wealth of economy, not by money spent on national defense
    Children should look forward to growing up
  • Alternative — bilateral decrease in strategic arms

Rocketry

  • Werner von Braun in Germany, Robert Goddard in U.S.
    After WWII in U.S., 1961-1978, the moment the human species (mainly the U.S.) explored all the planets known to the ancients
    Now many other nations have joined the exploration
  • Today, NASA is dis-spirited, in serious trouble
    Principle reason: NO GOAL
    IT NEEDS A GOAL AND ONE EXISTS:
    Systematic robotic exploration of Mars,
    followed by manned exploration of Mars around the turn of the century
  • If one or more nations combined, it could cost less than one strategic weapon
    Exploration could help show why the deterioration of the water on Mars…
    Send robots to Mars if science reason only
  • Should combine/cooperate with Soviets in some project on behalf of human species
    “Existence theorem” – high-tech cooperation is possible

    1. Cooperative unmanned exploration of Mars and its moons; Soviets plan to send six spacecraft to Mars 1988-2000
    2. Cooperate to build space station to build ships in space to make interplanetary travel for 9-month trip or longer
    3. Would capture the imagination of the human species that no other project would do!

    Same technology involved as in military

  • “It is as if God said, ‘Before you I set the tools of immense power to destroy yourselves or carry yourselves to the planets and the cosmos.'”
  • Governments make mistakes, lie, cheat and steal
    All citizens should have minimal understanding of science and engineering
    Reduction of nuclear arms — one problem at a time, other weapons reduced later
  • Reach minimum deterrence, not zero possession
    1968 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, Article VI, U.S. and USSR pledge to massively reduce their nuclear arsenals
  • “Testosterone poisoning” — men involved together too long in the act of killing
    Men are adapted to hunger-gatherers in East Africa but not to high-tech nuclear arms race today
  • Tortoise (them) and hare (us) effect with regards to space race — our government started out faster but quit…

= = = = = = = = = =

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE THESE SHIP’S LOG ENTRIES WERE WRITTEN…

Where are the ideas discussed in today’s “sociology of the future” class going to take us another 25 years hence?

  • Will computer modeling look as quaint as some of Sagan’s ideas look today?
  • Will our integration with electronic technology so blur the line between a body and machine, we stop paying attention to the distinction?
  • Will space exploration and planetary settlement make us no longer an Earth-based lifeform?

Rick wants to come back and share with you the future 1000 years from now but he promised himself he’d retire from active management of our species and fulfill his destiny to become one with nature, whatever that means.  Don’t make him come out of retirement and tell you what he already knows you’re going to do.  Trust that words like “recession” and “depression” are purely labels used to reinforce our species’ overprocessed development of social engagement we call economics and has nothing to do with how well our species will adapt to ecological changes currently in progress, such as planetary warming that goes against what should be a cooling period.  The planet transforms, individual species dying away as species always do, ours doomed to eventually disappear in the grand scale of planetary history — doesn’t matter if it’s in thousands, millions or billions of years, does it?  Keep on keeping on.

Wristbands and ankle bracelets

Agirita put her hands on her hips and raised her shoulders to stretch the tension out of her neck muscles.

She glanced down at the welps and bruises growing on her legs.

She was exhausted.

For some reason, she just remembered the old man had driven away with her share of the fish sales.

Now what was she going to do, broke and starving?

No one seemed interested in buying the squid, which, naturally, was made more difficult by the strange activities that happened to her when the squid was around.

She believed the world was full of magic, where people can disappear into unseen dimensions and travel through time.

Why so many people seemed to disappear recently had no ready explanation in Agirita’s thoughts.

Unless…

Was the squid a time machine?

Was it a portal to another universe?

What made people act so crazy around the squid?

Why did people call it a machine sometimes?

She faced the squid, finally noticing its new shiny, red exteriour.

When had its skin colour changed so drastically?

Agirita walked over to the squid and stared at the drying liquid which had fallen out of its backend.

Was it finally starting to decay?

Although she was no expert, she had seen enough sea animals to know they rarely survived out of water for more than a day or two.

Was this squid like a snail, able to hide its real body inside the soft shell of its head and mantle, having to purge to reduce its size?

Agirita needed to go on.  The heat of the day and the lack of food and water was getting to her.  She had a long way to walk to the other side of town and carrying the squid was no easy task, although it did seem to get lighter and lighter as the day wore on, possibly due to the loss of liquid from the squid that seemed to occur periodically.

She lifted the squid onto her left shoulder to ease the pain of a punch that “Clif” had landed on her right arm.

A warm feeling flowed through her body.

She felt like she was floating on air or lying back in a bathtub full of warm, aromatic water, surrounded by candles, soft music playing in the background.

She imagined a voice telling her that her wounds would soon heal quickly.

She wondered if robots, primates like chimps, dogs or dolphins would receive human-equivalent status first.

A new voice in her head told her not to worry, all living things on this planet have equal value when viewed from outer space, the interconnectedness was more important than a label applied to any one part of the global ecosystem.

She smiled at her revealing thoughts and walked on.

She had never heard that tone of voice in her head before, neither female nor male, almost disembodied, like it didn’t understand the complexities or significance of being a member of her species.

Was it God?

She had prayed to God many times, never getting a real answer, just signs in her life that perhaps God was listening and had granted her wishes but not in the way she had asked, as if God was balancing her selfish needs against those of everyone one.

Was she suffering sleep and food deprivation?

She carried the squid toward a fountain she knew was nearby.  At least there she could get a drink of water and build up her strength.

While she walked, she felt more energised with every step.

The bumps and bruises seemed to have dissipated, she thought, confused.

What is going on with me?

She brushed her cheek against the squid the way her mother’s cats used to rub against her when they were hungry.

She thought she heard, if not felt through her shoulder, an inaudible purring sound.

The squid couldn’t be alive.  Surely not!  Could it?

She paid more attention to the squid’s skin next to her face.

There!  She saw brown dots and white dots pulsing across the skin where it almost touched her face.

It was like…well, it…was the squid trying to match her skin colour?

Agirita blinked her eyes, never slowing her stride.

She had to get to that fountain!

Always testing the waters, sometimes diving in…

Lists, lists, lists.  Somewhere, probably in Italy at this time, is a person of international fame, if not fortune, who teaches and writes — Mr. Umberto Eco — a man who collects books, even if he does not read them all.

If, if, if.

I was a pledge for a fraternity to which my father belonged in his college days — Delta Tau Delta.

In the pile of papers I found yesterday, after clearing out a bunch of books I don’t need so that others may enjoy their literary/financial worth (sorry, Mr. Eco, I can’t hoard books my whole life — I must learn to let go of my physical possessions as I get closer to my natural death and the loss of all connections to our civilised lives here on Earth), a list of fellow pledges at DTD:

Name, hometown, classification/year, major, local address, local phone
Russ H., Knoxville TN, sophomore, communications, 970 Sunnydale, 693-9353
Bill Smith, Jamestown NC, sophomore, architecture, ?, 974-3843
Greg Scaione, East Brunswick NJ, freshman, political science, ?, 974-2689
David Lucas, Lexington KY, freshman, civil engineering, East Stadium Hall, x-4752
Mike Hinton, Fairfax VA, freshman, aerospace engineering, Greeve Hall, x-8098
David Rice, Knoxville TN, ?, undecided, Hess Hall, x-4062

The year was probably 1982, possibly 1983.  Like going through the ritual ceremony at DeMolay where I observed archaic symbols and recited passages I was supposed to share with no one, feeling more at ease in Boys Scout, I was turned off by Delta Tau Delta after going through the pledge/plebe ritual at Delta Tau Delta.

All that secret society mumbo-jumbo seemed outdated and also…somehow…wrong.

The same was true with some Boy Scout rituals like Order of the Arrow — the whole “rites of passage into adulthood” thing shrouded in stuff we’re not to tell young ones or those who were not deserving of being tapped out.

The only way I could keep from sharing these special words, phrases, hand signals and such was to forget what I saw and heard.

There is no privilege in rank.  Prestige is a crutch on which those without self-esteem lean, it seems, when I look at those who seek rank and privilege.

Those who do not seek but are given special rewards for their sacrifices to the greater social good are a different category.

I can understand why wise sages promote collections of instructions for social behaviour that encourage us to act naturally and let those whose natural acts selflessly benefit the species receive recognition from the rest of us.

The ant and the grasshopper.

Tomorrow or later this week, the judges who sit up high on the U.S. Supreme Court will issue their ruling about a social safety net nicknamed Obamacare.

I have seen the effects of this net, the result of national legislation, in that my mother in-law and father accrued a large cost in medical care by private practice doctors and public hospitals without having to pay a penny themselves; on the other hand, my former brother in-law has complained, amongst others, of having to pay higher out-of-pocket medical insurance premiums the last couple of years to pay for the social safety net.

The cost of running a local business in the U.S. includes socialised programs we call Social Security, Medicare and income taxes for general social government expenses, to name a few, if one has employees on the payroll, the business owner, too, that is.

A natural-born citizen takes no test or learns a secret ritual to earn full social safety net rights of citizenry.  A person not born in this country who becomes a full citizen must take a test and pledge allegiance to gain access to the social safety net legally.

I have a story to tell that takes me out of this realm of day-to-day worries about pledges and social safety nets but I am here to tell the story because of them.

In other words, a system for which I had no direct say/vote in implementing has directly benefited me very recently.  Some of the people who voted for the national legislation in Congress are members of secret societies such as fraternities, Masons, and Skull and Bones.

How many of us get full benefits of a social safety net without lifting a finger to help others in need?

Or do we give more than we receive?

Is there any way to measure our place in the economic and noneconomic portions of our society?  Does there have to be a balance or do we push our debt forward?

What if we paid it forward?

What is a secret smile shared between two strangers worth if it lifted the spirits of a dying person, lowering the need for, and thus the cost of, pain medication?

It’s about time to return to the story of Agirita and her new friend.

Their story is our story.

Allegorical, cynical, satirical.

I met a smile I liked before a metaphor is like a simile.

Rick is back for a brief moment: he thanks Chrispine, Avance, Ruth Ann, Stain, Matthew, Princess, Molly and others.

Organisational Skill Assessment

Before I compose a hand-drawn animation sequence with the Bamboo Capture graphics tablet and fill my future with out-of-date electronic debris, I finish sorting through the piles of debris that constitute the bulk of written material which emanated from this set of states of energy called me.

Watched a commencement speech by Laurie Anderson [I thought, for a public performance multimedia artist, her acting was rather stilted], which has prompted me to click my way to a website and order a copy of the book, “How to be idle,” which in turn opened my eyes to the reams of office paperwork stacked in boxes around me.

Here’s one from 03/24/98:

Kiersey Temperament Sorter Results

Your Temperament is Idealist: NF
Your variant temperament is Healer: INFP

Any Personality Test, including the Sorter is just a rough indicator of temperament.
You might want to look at different temperament descriptions to verify the results and learn about other types of people for comparison.

I+6 N+16 F+12 P+14

David M. Keirsey
keirsey@mail.orci.com

At that time in my life, the department manager was all about fitting us into jobs that matched our personalities.

What she didn’t account for was a chameleon like me, a people pleaser who assesses the wants and desires of the people around him and blends in, hiding his personality behind layers and layers of masks, revealing himself to a select few.

I told the manager I’m not who she thinks I am and she responded that was a normal reaction to the test results from an INFP like me.

Later, I learned that she gave the same response to everyone who questioned the test results.

I wasn’t questioning the test results.  I just wanted her to know that the test results indicated my exteriour in relation to giving her the test results I thought she wanted to see.

For instance, let’s say I find out my college History professor is a dopehead and adherent to the philosophy of Timothy Leary… I make sure my term paper for the class, a review of a book about socialist utopias, contains plenty of illicit drug references and hippy religious conversations.

My goals are not your goals.  My goals are outside of the time and place in which we encounter one another, so it doesn’t matter to me about the profit targets you want to reach or the edifices you want to build in your names.

Ideas and images associated with temporal moral and ethical practices are imaginary, as far as I’m concerned.

We either reproduce our genetic material or we don’t.

Everything else is fiction about how we decide to protect our reproductive organs until we’ve produced progeny that need our protection.

Me, I have only these works of art — the sketches and writings that were birthed by me with your influence, a part of the universe, upon me.

I have no genetically-related or adopted children.  The closest I got were the nieces and nephews who [might have] looked up to me as an adult member of their clan/tribe.

They are adults now.  My influence upon them diminishes as they decide how to protect their reproductive organs until they’ve produced progeny that need their protection.

One of my hidden goals was to live long enough to be a great-uncle.

I held up my step-niece’s little one-month young girl in my arms, making me the great-uncle I wanted to be ever since I was a little boy and looked up to my childless great-uncle and great-aunt who seemed to have extra spending money my parents never had, despite the great-relatives’ middle-class wages as a postman and office secretary, respectively.

I have grown tireder as I’ve aged, exercised less and eaten minimally-nutritious chemically-treated foodstuff.  I no longer want to be a model for others or someone to look up to.

It’s time to slow down and concentrate on the dreams and desires of the personality behind all the masks…

The boy who saw macabre nightmares come to life when his favourite politician of all time, Richard Nixon, resigned.

The boy who looked down at his plate of spaghetti and thought he was eating a dish full of bleached worms covered with red sauce to hide their little heads screaming for mercy.

The boy who heard the grass talk to him.

The boy who sailed the universe at night when no one was looking.

The boy who knew that stone gargoyles and cast-iron mailboxes were like three-dimensional photographs of a reality hidden inside other people’s heads, finding an outlet, me wondering where they came from before they appeared in people’s thoughts.

The boy who earned his Eagle Scout badge and went on into Explorer Scouts, later to become a Unit Commissioner, an adult role in Scouting, because he never thought he had gained his father’s love and trust, constantly seeking, seeking, seeking approval up until he reached his adult age of 18 where he received a full college scholarship via the U.S. Navy ROTC program, accepted at both Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech, but realising he no longer had to seek his father’s approval and flunked out on purpose.

I had become the man I never thought I’d be able to grow up to be.

I never was my father and never will be.

I am me.

My hidden visions, the alternate reality that I carry in my thoughts as I interact with people who seem to like to embrace the inconsistent reality of [sub/ex]urban lifestyles and belief systems, are crawling out of me and into the world in which we meet and greet one another cordially.

They are not perfect.

They are not commercialised, plastic products for mass production and insane profit margins.

I don’t even care if others steal, borrow or marginalise my work.

My work is not me but my work came from me so I associate myself with my work but I do not tie my self-worth to what I’ve written, drawn, danced, sang or sewn.

This is the only moment in which I live and I claim this moment as mine, declaring myself absolutely insane in comparison to the insanity of boxed stuff that we only call food because the pretty picture on the outside tells me it is.

Unlike Madison Avenue marketers, I don’t have to make money from my creative redefinition of ordinary life.

I can, have been and will be me, willing to use the excess capacity of our species’ social structure that produces a buffer zone outside of basic survival to express myself here and elsewhere, on paper, in blogs and wherever I feel I want to breathe what always has to be my last breath because the next one is not guaranteed.

On to the graphics tablet, building upon my first animation!!!

As an independent filmmaker said,

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”
—Jim Jarmusch, The Golden Rules of Filming[