How to be a gangster

Last night, I was streaming GTAV online and one of my viewers (who is also a fellow streamer and a huge inspiration to my own streaming career so far) invited me to be the 4th member of the big prison heist they'd been planning.  The whole adventure will be on twitch.tv for a few weeks if you wanna check it out, but one moment really popped out to me.

http://www.twitch.tv/philosofanna/c/6652561

Click on the link now and continue to read, because it will take a bit to load.  I'll edit this post soon as I figure out how to export it to youtube, but for now trust me.  It's only a minute long, but due to the way it is stored, twitch has to run through a lot of data to dig up the footage. 

While our buddies were on the other side of the city doing something insanely dangerous (I kinda spaced out during their briefing), Shadonite and I posed as cops, stole a cop car, and used our disguises at the local police department to steal the schedule for when the next prison bus was coming as we needed one for our master plan of rescuing some guy that looks like Walter White. 

This clip captures the burning of any evidence leading back to us.  It is so easy to get caught up in objectives and the rush of whatever world we find ourselves in.  We too often forget to simply enjoy the moment.  When I ripped the car around around to park and smoke to acknowledge the death of that vehicle we'd just had such good times in, I think I ripped Shado right out of that rush and directly into a moment of pure magic.  The rest of the night after just kept getting better and better from there.  Hope you enjoy.

Weirdness and Reality

One thing that never fails to surprise me is how often reality surprises me with its superb moments of humor, irony, weirdness, and beauty.  As humans, we ought to pride ourselves on our creativity.  Our media can invent worlds of insane happenings that are perfectly choreographed to deliver on these ideas of humor and irony and weirdness and most importantly beauty.  There are others, but it guess you can see where my priorities lie.  Either way, life surprises me.  It reminds me that we humans are but children at creativity, irony, and form.  No matter how cool we are, life will come up with something more perfect.

For example, humor.  A Nobel lauriette was traveling to see his grandmother.  He was going through airport security and was searched and questioned on his belongings.  When they saw the statue made of pure gold, they asked him if someone had given this to him.  He said of course someone had.  The king of Sweden gave it to him.  The TSA agents immediately shat themselves (exaggeration) as their training kicked in.  For after all, what if this man was smuggling drug money and was spoofed by someone impersonating the king of Sweden?  Mind you, they are in America.  They ask him why and he elegantly explains that he discovered that the universe's rate of expansion was accelerating; that he was a Nobel Prize winner.  They had only one more question: Why are you in Fargo?

It's so funny.  It's so beautiful.  I could NEVER have come up with something like that.  No comedy will ever trump what has happened in the countless lifetimes we as humanity have lived.  On that note, I've spoken a few times on my belief that there aught be no distinction between Fiction and Nonfiction.  This is a piece of my argument for that case.  When a comedian immortalizes that moment in a work of art, is it fiction or nonfiction?  What do we do with a nonfiction occurrence that is truly stranger than any fiction?  What do we do with a fiction like our financial system becoming more true than the nonfiction of reality?  

Dear reader, the lines of fiction and nonfiction are blurred by our every action.  When I birthed a toaster in high school physics out of plastic, metal, and silver, I turned fiction into fact.  When you hear my words transmitted to your mind from afar, you blur the line between magic and the mundane.  And when we all die (for die, we shall), what then will we learn about fiction and fact, magic and the mundane, fear and adventure-- the likes of which few can attempt to understand.

Taoism

I handed off my favorite translation of the Tao Te Ching to a friend recently and one of my favorite stories lit up like a supernova in my mind.  The story goes something like this:

Once, a Chinese lord who followed the Tao was under siege by a local lord who thought him weak.  His people were in fear.  Their friends and farmers outside the keep could not approach.  Food stores were running low.  The king gathered his people together and called out to the greatest thief in the town.  Everyone in the town knew who this person was, but it took a while for her to step forward from her home in the shadows.  The lord got on his knees and asked her calmly to aid his fair city.  It may not have been kind to her, but she is the only one who can save their keep.  Obviously, this piqued the thief's curiosity and the king told her what he had to do.  

That night, the thief was sent out alone on a dangerous mission.  The following morning, one of the most agile boys in the town climbed down the side of the fort and delivered the jade hairpin of the sieging general to the standing army.  The siege continued and the thief was sent out into the night once more.  This time, the general was waiting on the front lines to retrieve his pillow from the young delivery boy.  

A curious thing then happened.  The siege stopped.  The people asked their king why this had worked.  He told them that he was demonstrating his power.  Taking his hairpin was easy, a catburglar could do that.  Taking the pillow gently enough that it could not be sensed was a step up to the level that if my people were to come to harm from his blockade, I could take his life at any moment I pleased.  He finally reminded his subjects to reflect on who had saved them from their plights and asked them to focus on aiding the worst of them that they might not have to resort to such desperate acts.

The story sticks with me to remind me that all beings have purpose.  There is no good or bad, there is simply what is.  A thief is a result, not a criminal.  A challenge is a door, and many keys exist if you are but creative enough to find them.

Fighting styles and metaphors

We've all heard some form of the saying, "style x counters or defeats style y."  The weird part about that is that we've all heard that saying from different places.  A gamer might say Soraka hard counters many top laners.  I might say Aikido will always triumph over Kung Fu.  A mother might say to her child, "with your sister, it's sometimes just best to just walk away."  This déjà vu of this statement is not accidental.  

Household disputes, epic battles, nail-biting duels, philosophical debates, fighting of every kind is a metaphor; timespace's representation of the battle between the wills of the participants.  In my opinion, the most successful participants are the ones who can read the style of their opponent and change their mindset to counter it.  The tenacity of their focus on this mindset will win them exchanges safely.  While switch ups are necessary, the fewer actions that violate the style they are countering with, the greater their chance of success.  This is all well and good if I am talking about fighting as not many can say they have battled to the extent that I have, but what about all that stuff about disputes and debates?  How does all that sort out?  Dear reader, the two are but shadows of the same truth.  Let me explain with a personal example.

When speaking to my own mother, it is common for me to become irritated at how often she throws out the same bits of information out at me.  I don't have a problem with it per say, I understand it is from the best of places, but it is just one of those things that just gets me.  We all find them in the ones we love, so overcoming them is most probably a universal battle waged by all humans past a certain age.  If this were some fantasy battle, I'd characterize my mom's comments like a cloud of gas around her that deals a tiny bit of damage while around her for long periods of time without movement or action.  In said fantasy battle, if I were to leave the poison cloud, I'd no longer take damage, but I'd also deal damage to her because she wants to talk to me.  So I can't leave.  What do I do?  I'd probably cast a spell or just cover my mouth to stop myself from ingesting the poison.  Ironically, this technique works equally well when not in the fantasy setting.  I love the word irony here and I think it is perfect, but I want to expound on that point by saying that this mirroring of actions across mediums of expression is more than metaphor.  It is true congruency.  

Next time you feel someone's presence is defeating you, consider observing their mindset and asking yourself what mindset you must be loyal to in order to benefit the current situation.  If they are hurting you, are you going to hurt them to show them that you are in pain because of them?  Are you going to do something that will protect yourself from the actions you know you can defend against?  Are you going to simply leave the battle because you can't defend against it?  Are you going to burn bright and warm to pacify and heal?  We all know the coworker with the stonewall smile and I-don't-give-a-shit to their boss.  We all have met someone who strikes the most exposed nerve you have just to make you feel as in pain as they are.  How do you deal with those tactics?  Do you defend yourself?  Do you fall like a soccer player to show them how successful their strike was?  Do you make the first move or the second?

Ask these questions as martial artists do, modify your footwork and your tactics, let that mindset lead your actions.  Remind the world that all forms of expression are the real metaphor.  For all of it is metaphor for the truth as it is in this very moment.

College, redefined

Many of you know that I am neck-deep in the wake of the tidal wave that is the programming project I am working on.  As I work, I think to myself, "I wish I had some kind of place I could go to learn and have help giving physical form to the ideas I have."  Then I stop.  I am reminded of a game I played where the fantasy land had a college that was just like this.  It was a place where all the brilliant eccentrics hung out together.  The college had floors of research labs open for all to participate and discover with.  One wasn't ever a "graduate", academics were simply judged on how long, and how much, they gave to that community.

I want one of those for my world.  While I do know the first thing about programming, I am nowhere near knowledgable enough to complete this programming project without help.  So I picture a world where these colleges and their inhabitants are updated in real time via the internet.  I can know where all my favorite minds are (looks like Sir Ken Robinson is in Scotland today), I can search for communities of programmers (looks like there is a campus ten miles out where Wiemar used to be that is home to some programmers who could help me), and I can have access to all these resources at any time (looks like my tax dollars for education will be well spent this year).  Picturing all of this in my head is the first step.  Pulling the present forward to meet this imago is the next step.

The way I see it, first world countries would not have to build a single building or earn a single cent to turn this into a reality.  Dump administration teams and testing coordinators and curriculum designers and let the WORLD decide what needs taught.  School presidents would become gigadeans and their whole campus would now be rentable with access to equipment to students looking to learn and do.  I'm sure many teachers would rent out their room and hold classes of their fancy open to all.  I'm sure a few hundred local teachers of pottery, martial arts, yoga, or literature would be overjoyed to be able to have their midnight class in a safe place with free rent.  This would facilitate lower prices which is the direction we must go, for it is in direct incompliance with our current economic model.  If you wanna know more about that direction, stay tuned for next post.  Dear reader, thank you as always.  Til next time.

Homeschooling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY
Watch this.  Please.  Come back when you are done.

So.  Yeah.  He's 13.  No one judges him but him.  He is free and awake and confident, independent and idealistic.  What changed?  Well, he became basically uncivilized by our societal standards.  He hacked his world wide open like a watermelon and is devouring every delicious piece of eternity.  He didn't do what someone told him to do, he learned how to find what makes him alive.  He was homeschooled.  He was rescued from the modern paradigm.

Tokes of Awe 2

Welcome back to episode 2 of Tokes of Awe where we honor the show Shots of Awe by taking QUITE a bit more weed than Mr. Silva before sitting down to write.

"

I love plants.  They are so beautiful and hopeful and resilient.  Their babies, their SEEDS, have the strength to break through concrete in order to reach up towards their energy source, the sun.  Once they reach the sun, abundance is found; all of their wants and needs disappear and they party in the vast plenitude of it's radiance.  They begin to produce fruits and seeds to GIVE to the world for free because they are so satiated by this concert in the sky.  

Now I have partied with some intense disciples of the universe, but plants take the cake.  Sticking with this concert metaphor, plants extend with exuberance like groupies on the roadshow of their life EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Even if they run out of food and water, they'll still rock out until they wrinkle into crunchy husks.

So take care of your plants.  Give them water with the same care as you would give to a groupie barely conscious from rocking out too hard on without a water bottle.  Do that and she'll share with you the joys of her life completely freely.  ... Yeah, that's what I came here to say.
"

Heroes of the Storm: Malfurryman Build

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Fanfiction

For all ya'all who don't know, I love me some Avatar: The Last Airbender.  If I'm honest, I think I like Legend of Korra better, but a part of me bows in respect to the origin of a series that has matured many-fold into such a beautiful creature.  I'm not here to compare though.  I'm here to talk about fanfiction.  ... I like fanfiction.  No judge, plox.  

My favorite type of fanfiction involves the act of changing one or two small details that change EVERYTHING about the characters and how they interact.  The best truly try to archive these alternate realities with as much integrity to the source material as they can.  It's a wonderful mental exercise and I truly believe that young people echo participate in this exercise, be it about Master Chief or just straight slashfiction, will grow greatly in doing so.  

You know what's coming next.  An example.  Here we go.  Let's try to create a new universe out of the Avatar universe.  What if we just swapped air with fire?  What if the fire benders were the peaceful, nomadic benders and the air benders were the army republic?  "Everything changed when the air benders attacked."  This begs the questions then: how are the air benders to match the destructive force that the fire benders were in the show and how are the fire benders going to make sense as pacifist nomads?  

Air benders could be brutal if they were not pacifists.  Air benders could be flying dervishes of lethal pressure blades, they could launch others sky high and let gravity take care of business with all the ruthless efficiency of physics, an air bender could even suffocate their foes if they simply did not let them breathe.  Good villains?  Check, but we will have to modify the respective characters to fit their new world.  Perhaps Zuko's father severed his hand instead of scarred his face.  How would this change his attitude and his legend?  

In the third book, Aang learns that fire does not need to be about rage and destruction, but instead can be seen as the primal fire of the heart-- the spark of life that animates the clay of our bodies.  Perhaps fire benders in this fic practice pacifism to align their lives towards this belief.  Their flames would shine like the heavens as they defended.  A touch could draw that life force away to stun or even to radiate to revive and revitalize.  Pursued far enough, I believe the flame of a fire bender could solely sustain the human body, allowing these nomadic healers to never need to eat (they'd drink a lot though and need to pee all the time).  Aang's whole journey and struggle for nonviolence remains intact with this small detail switched, but all the details change.  Who teaches Aang the gentler side of the ruthless air bending?  What kind of children would he and Katara had?  How would this new historical legacy of fire mesh with the existing spiritual mythos of the story?  

These questions and the details they reveal are the keys that make this exercise so powerful.  Every question is an act of creation.  You take a young and imaginative mind and just start getting them to ask these questions and explore in the endless universe fountain of their imagination about whatever it is that interests them.  Be it a book or a movie, a video game or a garden, this exercise is not only fun, but also intense training in a skill that is absolutely necessary in the dire straights my generation is in.  

So yes.  That, dear readers, is why fanfiction is the national pastime of my brain.  Have a nice day with that.

Tea on a Tortoise

A poem...  I know it's not my usual bus, but it happened, so here ya go.

Sipping tea

on the back of a great green tortoise.

In the morning, I chop away at sprigs of lemongrass

I would say it is a pain in my ass

But that would rhyme too well

And conflict with the feelings

In this most pleasant dell.

I chop chop away

Focusing on my form

On the shoulders of giants

On the back of a great green tortoise.

Lemongrass and ginger

Boiled in water

Brews a simple winner

So from my leftover shreds

I brew and as I said

Sip this simple tea.
On the shoulders of giants
On the back of a great green tortoise

How happy am I to be

Chopping away in this most pleasant dell.

My thoughts roam as my hands follow their duty

Oh my tortoise would be 

so proud of me

O how I wish he could see

His child

So free

My hands so steady

My heart so at peace

My form as he taught me

On the shoulders of giants

On the back of a great green tortoise.

So I sip my simple tea

As my tongue cleans the slyest twigs and slipperiest grinds

The stars fall down around me

They bow in grace for the sun

The sun which brings the hunger of the new day

A hunger welling up in my half awake brothers and sisters

Half submerged in caffeine 

Half submerged in whispers

Screamed silently into their ears

Yet the light pours over me and I bathe

The whispers of that hateful society so far below me

For here I sit

Sipping my simple tea

On the shoulders of giants

On the back of a great green tortoise.

What supports the great green tortoise?

My thoughts demand this answer

As they guide my hands to cut and my tongue to clean and my brain to enjoy 

The whales, of course.

The tortoises of yesteryear are whales now, 

lifting 

so that he can lift you.

We cannot see them

Until we look deeper inside

From our perch atop a tortoise with a mouthful of tea

On the shoulders of generations

Tea on a tortoise

May we yet be

May we yet see

We are the tortoise of tomorrow 

Held up by our memories

Of the tortoise today

Tea on a tortoise

May we yet be

May we yet see

We are the whale of tomorrow

Living on in memory

Holding up the shoulders of giants

Holding up a great grey tortoise that is yet to be

Tea on a tortoise take three

May we yet be

May we yet see

We are the water of tomorrow 

Lost to all memory

Yet the foundation of all that holds up 

The whales

The tortoise

And the tea drinker

Tea on a tortoise to the heavens

May we yet be

May we ONLY see

We are the exploding star of tomorrow

The birth of the earth 

The birth of the water

The birth of the whales and the tortoises and the tortoise toppers

We will yet be.

So sip nobly on your tea

As you chop lemongrass 

On the shoulders of giants

On the back of a great green tortoise

Blessed are the cracked

I'm not sure where I first found this quote, but I know it's so good I had a professional poster made of it for my classroom back in the day.  "Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light."

The quote says that those broken by this world are blessed because a mysterious gift is granted to the broken.  A reverence for peace is given to the war torn, an enduring strength is given to those who have fallen-- callouses grow over cuts, bones calcify after a break, muscles grow following destructive use.  One must be damaged in order to grow.  Therefore, BLESSED are those who are broken, for they will gain more than they lost-- for that is law in the twilight zone of Life.

Cynics of this mindset will ask about those who lost a limb or died from being cracked.  Surely they have not gained more than they lost, they might say.  I can't speak for all cases, only for the possibilities.  For now, I'll give a single example before finishing what I came here to write.

A woman who lost both her legs in an accident spoke on TED.  She now makes a living and a life out of pushing the boundaries of prosthetic science.  When going to parties she gets to ask herself whether she wants to be 5'8 or 6'1 that night.  When she goes out to exercise, she gets to ask herself whether she wants to break human speed records with special legs or turn her exercise into research data that will propel the world forward.  She lost what most of us take for granted.  She looked around her and saw a world full of people who didn't have to think twice about going to get a glass of water.  Her lack of legs lead her to SEARCH for legs.  That search for improvement never really ended and may never end for her.  What broke her open, instead opened her up.  What she gained by losing that much was more than what any of us have never lost, for we have never needed to seek.

This trend continues into the deepest depths of all human sufferings.  While I know not the words to explain to you that I know this, I assure you.  With my heart, with my eyes, with my body, with my soul, one simply has to search to find the light hidden within every darkness.  The more broken we become, the more light we let in.  Therefore, blessed are those who have lost, for they find the courage to seek.  Blessed are those who suffer, for they find the strength to console.  Blessed are those who lack, for they find the desire to create.  Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light.  

Many consider death to be the ultimate human problem, the source of all of our suffering.  If suffering in these human bodies is akin to cracking out cup, then death is akin to annihilating our cup into nothing. I do not fear death because once my cup is annihilated, there will be nothing left but light.  This is not to say I wish to die, for that much light would surely blind me with how dull and ignorant I am.  As I age, I seek to crack open my cup more and more and accustom myself to the light that lies beyond.  This is not to say that I seek suffering either.  Firstly, I definitely don't need to search very far to find suffering, but more importantly, there is enough light and joy to blind me like death right in my backyard.  I need but empathize with the weeds or flowers as they extend upwards like groupies towards the concert stage of the performance of their lives.  I need but breathe in the air and know that my diaphragm creates a current that pulls on the hair of lovers in Argentina.  Simply see with eyes unclouded and there is no need to seek out suffering.

There is only a need to see the good that suffering will bring, if you only but open your heart to it.  Blessed are the cracked.  Blessed are you, dear reader.

Order and Chaos

I like to say often that the universe of life is a metaphor reflecting the universe of things.  As usual, this has been said before.  "As above, so below."  If you'll sit with me, dear reader, I feel this will be one of the more intense posts I'll ever write.  I could be wrong.

In today's world, we hear the words "good" and "evil" thrown around a lot.  Light and darkness, fire and water, the names change, but the concept remains the same.  Today I will be expanding on these themes by calling them instead "order" and "chaos" respectively.  The balance between these two forces, much like the good and evil stories of our culture's youth, shift the fate of the entire universe as we know it.

Chaos on the physical plane manifests as entropy, the tendency for the universe to break down.  My cod example here being the vase breaking; once broken, it is never whole again from that point in time forward.  Those aligned with this physical nature believe in impermanence and the one fate that connects us all: death.  This is not "evil", it is simply a physical reflection of the metaphor of entropy.  Scientists speak often of the end result of entropy.  If entropy is to win out, the universe itself will continue to expand until everything is ripped apart.  According to this theory, as matter spreads, gravity will not be able to overcome this emptiness and universal temperatures will drop.  Eventually, all matter in the universe will exist only in black holes, but entropy will eventually break those down too, for her immeasurable depths envelop all.  At some point further than any of us can fathom, all matter will eventually reach zero Kelvin, a metric invented to denote absolutely zero kinetic energy; no movement, no life, forever.  This is one possible death of the universe and it is the reflection of chaos reigning supreme over order.

Order on the physical plane manifests as the anti-entropic force of life.  If entropy is the breaking down, anti-entropy, now synonymous to love and order in this post, represents the tendency for life to join.  Love is an experience of two, who were once one as we all were at the Big Bang, attempting against all law in the universe to join together again.  Love is two pieces of a broken vase attempting to become whole once again.  If love were to flourish in this world, all life would begin to mix back together and form a singularity of individuals who act as one body greater than the sum of their parts.  Mankind would walk among the stars with the same chaotic grace of a body comprised of a billion cells walking through a grocery store.  This is not "good", it is simply a reflection of the metaphor of this anti-entropic mindset.  This is currently not the projection of scientists, but if order were to win out over entropy, the entire universe would eventually become one being.  "Man will impregnate the universe with knowledge and eventually matter will become mind," as someone really cool once said.  Gravity, in this case, would eventually begin to pull the entire universe even closer together.  If man can indeed master the universe, our great love will weigh on this universe with immeasurable mass and pull things closer.  Andromeda and Sol would be as connected as I am to all of you-- and eventually closer.  Closer still that this gravity would grow and grow until the entire universe would collapse in on itself and truly become one once again.  This fate is called "the Big Crunch" by physicists, and it too is a definition of how the universe might die and it is the reflection of order winning out over chaos.

Address your attention to the one common force here, gravity.  Gravity is the Tao of the universe.  Like tides, the universe as a whole flows towards order and chaos and back maintaining the life of the universe itself, for as long as neither of these forces wins, the universe will neither expand nor contract.  If either becomes too powerful, the end result is only death.  The largest cycle I can fathom (which is but a grain of sand compared to our universe) is the relationship between Sol and Serius.  These stars dance with each other in the heavens and that gravitational force astrologically creates the great Mayan cycle of awakening and falling asleep in our world.  These cycles on every level, from sub atomic particles to galactic interactions, are the very BREATH of the universe.  Breathing out into chaos is just as necessary as breathing in into order.  The Tao of gravity knows this, although gravity does not "know", it simply is.

Therefore, do not despair if you see the world through entropy-tinted glasses.  You are simply a reflection of the universe breathing and are as necessary as the brightest soul.  For that soul cannot bring breath into this world without the lack of it.  If your glasses are order-tinted, do not despair at the great battle of attempting to become one.  Revel in that struggle and commit to it because you MUST bring life and breath into this universe for it is what the lion in your heart demands.  All beings have purpose and it is only when we all do our part that the universe will live.

And death is not the end.  The Big Crunch will be followed by a Big Bang.  Life would not be able to live in that confined space for long.  As one, it would create another universe just as ours was created. The heat death of the universe would also rip apart, for the unstoppable force of entropy meeting the immovable moment of zero Kelvin would surely rip open the dimensions in a way that there are no words yet to describe.  This cycle of death and rebirth, is but one more cycle that macroscopes to every level of this universe with perfect consistency.

When I hear the words, "as above, so below", I picture a human awakening.  A state of enlightenment is reached wherein balance simply becomes.  This human's spirit becomes aligned and as above, so too their body rights itself into a state of perfect being.  As above, so below.  I would like to end this post by taking this just one step further.  I see the entire universe as one being doing whatever the hell universes do in the land beyond our many dimensions.  All of us, all of THIS STUFF, is but a metaphor for what lies above.  Take some time to reflect on those words.  As above, so below.  The universe is breathing.  Listen to that breath, dear reader, and you will know fear no more.

Flattered beyond compare

I have never been flattered more than just recently.  I told someone about Veiled and she made me a fanart of the ONE thing I have drawn for it.  I just can't even say how proud and happy getting the  appreciation and pure honor of this fanart.  

http://i.imgur.com/ddZrWHC.gif?1

The Alchemist

This book by Paulo Coelho never fails to amaze me.  I have not read it yet this year as I usually do because I have been lending it out to people constantly.  I was at a friend's house uninvited and my copy sat bookmarked in front of me.  Having already cleaned the place, I scooped it up and opened to the bookmark.

"

'An army is coming," the boy said.  'I had a vision.'

'The desert fills the hearts of man with visions," the camel driver answered.

But the boy told him about the hawks: that he had been watching their flight and had suddenly felt himself to have plunged into the Soul of the World.

The camel driver understood what the boy was saying.  He knew that any given thing on the face if the earth could reveal the history of all things.  One could open up a book to any page, look at a person's hand; one could turn a card or watch the flight of the birds ... whatever the thing observed, one could find a connection with his experience of the moment.  Actually, it wasn't that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetrating the Soul of the World.  

"

There is so much more I want to copy here, but I will restrain myself.  Read it again, dear reader.  It will surprise you every time with entire chapters you never remembered it to contain.

Art as religion

I often ponder on the deepest underlying roots connecting all religion and all spiritual explorations.  Put another way, I experiment with the concept of all religions containing one universal spark at their core that all apostles of every faith share on common.  To put words to this flickering flame is as hard as trying to catch it in your hand.  I see it as a THING.  It is something that is found on any number of journeys.  Once it is held, the holder feels connected to something greater than one's self.  Be it Islam or Wicca, be connecting to God in heaven or experiencing the greatest connection to the magic of the all mother, that moment of mixing the self with the almighty is somehow universal.  

While definitions may differ, I believe not in what I have described as a result of this search, but instead believe in what I have felt on this search.  This abundant feeling is sacred, but it is not a purely religious feeling.  I have felt this same way about certain movies, certain books, certain games even.  The experience lifts me up and connects me to something higher than myself.  Examples.  Cloud Atlas connected me to this endless journey across the ages as souls cross and recross the same problems again and again until they transcend them.  Prince of Persia connected me to a brave soul who conquers time itself to weave a narrative and growth arc that truly transcends time.  

Every story is a vessel that takes us to a different dimension.  It is the dimension where the collective imagination of all beings is given form.  By drinking of these stories and experiences, I become them; I live what they live and learn what they have learned.  I become more than myself and when I experience a story that connects me so complete to another and that feeling is identical to its sister flame that I find at the root of all religions I have studied.  

Dear reader, I would like to extrapolate this one step further.  Might I be so bold as to say that all art, all ACTION may lead us to this grand connecting force.  I do not mean to say that all of us are on this anti-entropic path, but I find most of humanity seeks this single feeling-- a flame that flickers through adversity and warms us to the truth that we are not alone.  

Meditate is an adverb

Many people these times see meditation as an act.  One sits down and consciously breathes into a state of deep, healing relaxation and it will improve their lives.  They are meditating, yes, but they are yet unaware that this state of being is akin to any adverb describing a person.

I see meditation as a state of perfect being.  One is perfectly in the moment.  One is so at one with the tidal twists and turns of fate that all is calm even while tumbling through that most torrential current.  This is easy to do when doing nothing but meditating, but it is also easy to do this during any and every action possible in this universe.  Buddhist monks have this DOWN.  Everything from mopping the floor to drinking tea is perfected while the monk is simply present, at one with the perfection of his or her presence.  This IS meditation.  Many ascetics simply wish to live their lives in this state-- and anyone who has meditated truly has likely envied a reality where they are so constantly present.

Therefore, I say why not!  Meditation is an adverb.  I do not meditate, I meditatively DO.  I do not simply drink water, I bless this water as I drink and it in turn blesses me with the perfection I have helped it attain.  I do not simply draw art for work, I connect to the highest dimensions and call down in perfect clarity these transdimensional moments onto paper.

And you can too.

Without the speaker, nothing is said.  Without the reader, nothing is gained.  If I am to accept that we are one, dear reader, I must accept that there is no distinction between the reader and the writer.  This is your creation as well as mine.  Together, remembering our roots, we are greater than both of us.  

Avatar state

I had a dream recently that was awesome.  This dream started off more like a meditation.  I found myself in a calm, blanketing canvas of mystically deep waters.  I gained a moment of lucidity and invited a friend.  Adara showed up and I asked her to teach me how to firebend a la the show Avatar.  I proceeded to lose lucidity at this point, but what I partook in was the bending equivalent of a philosophical jam session.  

I'll continue in first person now to get deeper into that moment.

Adara showed me first: "it feels like this."  Her thumb on my head shares with me a moment from her past.  The fire that ignites in my hand feels like pure creation.  It is like holding an entire army of Celtic fiddlers all pouring their souls into an astonishing piece about life's perfection.  It is like coming up with an idea that will change the world.  It is like being pregnant with the universe.  My heart overflows into movement and every flicker of action is creative and full of pure life force.  Wherever I move, the burning passion of life in its prime wreathes me as I go.  I swathe fractals in flame limited only by the life in the infinite being of all existing within my heart.  I believe in my strength when I firebend because in doing so, I am life itself-- my breath is steady and my fire can warm, soothe, dazzle, or protect all the beauty this universe has to offer.

"It feels totally different from my native element, water."  I raise my palm in yang to show her.  To bend water, one's mind must be at the bottom of the ocean; dark, but constantly moving, the source of all nourishment, yet so easily tugged around by the moon and by man.  I become infinitely humble as to never be broken.  A double helix of water rises as my arm paints upwards.  Now arisen, I slide humbly and exhale out.  Water humbly follows with all the strength of the tide.  This tidal force envelops all that my communicating and healing waters touch, wholly and completely.  I am in perfect communion with the one truth that all things share.  I believe in my strength when I waterbend because my depths are unfathomable-- I can contain within me any anger thrown at me and unleash a calming deluge in response, exactly proportionate to the situation.

"Now, Adara.  Where in water and fire, one communes with a force of the universe beyond them, air is entirely and completely different.  Air is purely movements of the self."  With a movement of my hand across my body as I lower my presence, a vacuum opens and the wind pours in to fill the void created by my movement.  Slowly, at first, but as my gestures become more bold, mighty oaks may fall to the movements of my soul.  With air in mind, there is action and reaction, movement and the fury of the storm that follows.  I must be careful, but I have nothing to fear, for my gentle hand touches all.  I believe in my strength when I Airbend because I know do not have to change anyone-- I need but change myself, the world will align by causality.

"As with fire and then water, it is wind and then earth."  Earth bending feels surprisingly weak of power in my physical form.  It is an allegiance and a bond with the earth that respects the fragility of me, but when fully realized, my strength is infinite because it is the entire earth moving to aid me.  Each pebble believes in me so much that I need but point and the earth itself flocks to experience what I believe is there.  I am a YouTube celebrity.  I am but a piece of clay on this earth, yet others believe in me.  I need but move my arms up defensively and this world bends its entire might to shelter me from harm, for I am important.  I believe in my strength when I Earthbend, but only because I know that I am but a pebble with a voice to inspire.

"To envision the avatar state, I must inform you of what it is like without."  When I waterbend, my entire being was water.  My focus is so heavily on the connection and the unfathomable depths that my mind cannot experience the exact opposite of the infinite high of conducting a symphony of fire at the same time!  To do both at once is surely impossible.  To bend more than one element at once is to feel multiple experiences at once.  It is to experience multiple lives, all lives even, and pull out of that sea the movements that rewrite fate itself.  To fly away backwards on a cloud while flinging boulders, one has to be both completely focused on moving the self while needing those movements to inspire the earth itself to leap to action.  To slam my fist into the ground and encase my target in electrified water, I must fill the unfillable depths of my soul with the intensity of the fire I hold in my heart.  Each combination is unique and each feels more like I am looking at myself from the void of time than it does feeling and moving and acting like each element individually.  All four elements at once, like the caging of Vaatu, is a feeling of such intense unification, I have a hard time describing it.  In bending all four at once, I become the world I bend.  It is no longer me bending my surroundings, it is my surroundings bending to make way for my will on this earth.

...

Ok, I hope you enjoy.  I feel like an ABSOLUTE nerd at this point and feel like I should go hide in a corner forever.  kthxbai

Papoose

http://papoosedoorbelle.blogspot.com/

This website is a beautiful place.  It is filled to the brim with nothing but the sparkling stuff that makes kids beg you for just one more story.  And now I'm part of it.  Go check it out!  Remember, even clicking on the link gives wonderful people like myself, Papoose, and Ken a view.  Those views add up into more viewing and those viewings add up into more viewings.  The internet is a democracy of clicks.  Here is to clicking wisely with the future in mind <3  

Gaming evolved

Whether you play games or not, the idea of fighting games is pretty simple.  You have a life bar, your enemy has a life bar, may the best gamer win.

The game I linked below is a team based game where 5 players join together to lead an army on three fronts into the enemy base.  I am linking it because for so long, gaming has been about the individual.  The times are changing and games like this give each character a part to play in a being greater than each of them individually.  Watch the bottom of the screen.  The red and the blue bars are the combined life total of the visible members of the respectively colored teams.  Full circle.  This is still a fighting game to test skill and train quick thinking, but the mechanics have evolved beyond the capacities of a single player.  Lucian, featured here, is but the arm of the team.  He rocks socks, but in truth is nothing without the other four.

I want to see games like Starcraft and Civilizations and Eve incorporate functionality with multiple players given control over one body.  It'd be like Pacific Rim, the pilots having to become one in order to move a body massive enough to take on the task at hand.  It is an exponentiation of battle for one, but it is also a new dimension of connection and synergy that reaches out beyond language.  When I played that game, I played with crazy people from Brazil, loud people from Korea, funny people from Spain, and quiet people from Canada.  No matter who or how they were, the goal was the same and achieving that goal meant cooperating.  It meant seeing things as bigger than yourself.  Sometimes it meant sacrificing your life to protect someone.  Sometimes it meant knowing that someone was sacrificing themselves for you.  Sometimes it meant taking a leap of faith into a fight you thought you will lose because your teammates believe it was possible.  There is a language of pings and body language that transcends country and helps five become one.  

Games can teach that.  Convention tells us otherwise because we cannot imagine anything greater for the medium.  If we can simply imagine something greater, we can create it.  If we can simply conceive a better world in our minds, we can transform our world to match it.  That is our power.  That is our responsibility.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ME-TLmyQA

Here's another vid for the road.  More focused on the specifics behind team play.  I highly recommend it.

http://youtu.be/IdA_yq1i0S0

Veiled

Welcome to Veiled, my first YouTube project.  I have had pipe dreams of turning this old dream into a comic, but I am not a high enough caliber artist to dedicate myself to that work for the years it would take to go panel by panel.  I also find myself fond enough of writing to desire to write my own books on these, but I am not a high enough caliber writer to fashion an entire book.  

Why not do both?  I have an imagination, surely I cannot believe that an artist must be limited to one medium or the other.  Veiled will be done in a visual novel style with a voice over of my episodes with some flash of my artwork to aid the narrative.  Each episode will be YouTube length and will be able to be watched for the most part in any order even though order will of course add to the experience.  

Veiled is about the nameless protagonist who is trapped by the current God in a single moment in the present.  She is trapped so that she may learn enough to succeed the current one.  This god is a troll dad and has set up an experience she is familiar with: earning achievements.  Each achievement is some important lesson she gleans from the moment.  There will be some filler episodes like an achievement for walking 500 miles complete with her getting upset about getting the song stuck in her head.  Also: God is depicted as a chipped coffee mug with "best dad" printed on it.  Because ... Well that's how it was in the dream it came from.

I drew it on the back of some notes for a job I was doing on my clipboard with a knife-sharpened pencil.  The work is entirely my own save for the ... Whoever that is behind her.  That was drawn on there by someone else, but I like it.  If you look close, the sun's lens flare eclipses the best dad mug as well as the title.  Her skirt (which is not what she normally wears, this is a publicity piece) has some super intricate designs on it that might be hard to see (nevermind, I inked it).  She is floating on a cloud overlooking vast plains and mountains framing the sunset.  When I photoshop this, the "angel" will be practically a watermark, and the color pallete will be somewhere between dark souls two and the earthy pastelles of a hippy wardrobe.

Enjoy and wish me luck.  I'll be attempting to get my YouTube career up and running with this and a few other shows I'll tell you about later.  

I have to level with you, dear reader.  I am a geyser of creative energy right now.  It is absolutely insane.  Between all this YouTube stuff AND the Red Alert earlier, I have work that needs doing.  The lion in my heart is charging forward with unstoppable tenacity and I am holding on for my life, may chance to see these things in my soul to be given life on our plane.