the suit

If you've been on this site often enough, you've probably caught yourself thinking, wow! What depth of meaning in this blog! What clarity of expression this young man has! How is it possible that with his pointed insights and persuasive manner he has not yet managed to garner the undying fealty of the populations of at least one or two small nation-states?

The answer is simple and I've said it before - hypocriticalness. People want to see me living with absolute, unflinching commitment to an ideal before they'll hop on board my love machine and baby, I ain't got it.

Take, for instance, this picture. Here I am decked out in a name-brand suit I don't need. Yes, it was on sale at BfM for five bucks, but that's not the point. Think around the deal to the principle - why did I buy this particular suit and not the bulky, wooley accountant ensemble that was next to it? And even more importantly, why did I put it on, take a shot of myself, and post it on the internet?

You see, that's where the whole "Josh/Hero/Worship" formula breaks down. Inevitably, I end up betraying that I am a slave to my baser instincts: in this case, fear of rejection. I crap out and buy a suit I don't need because I know the majority of people who see me in it are going to say, "hey, that's a tasty morsel of man-meat there! I shore do like him more than I did when he just wore ratty old long johns all over the place." As Pedro the Lion put it, the only reason I feel secure is that I am validated by my peers. While some of my peers are the sort of people who make their own clothes and eat locusts and honey all day, most are not. Most think Hugo Boss is the man. That isn't entirely the case, but it's a good file-cabinet's worth.

And even though you like to get on this site and think of me in some snug cob-webby little corner of my dilapidated shack, rattling away on my ancient two-eighty-six while sipping hot apple cider and plotting my next eco-friendly day, if you saw me in the street in this outfit you'd probably think, "nice suit". Then, if you're like me, you'd mutter under your breath, "rich philistine corporate schill".

You know what, though? I don't think we have to stay like this. I think we can root the deceptiveness and superficiality right out of our selves and start loving on eachother at the soul level. But there I go again, moralizing to sound wise. Please accept my apology and go attack a falsity in yourself.

Einstein's World

Everybody knows Einstein. Probably the second-most popular poster on dorm walls (after the buxom lass-of-the week) is a picture of Einstein's mug with his tongue out and his hair exploding in all directions. We all know that Einstein wasn't good at math as a kid, that he was really smart anyways, and that people keep trying to blame him for the atomic bomb. That's about the scope of what the average Bloe knows.

But the dude was also a man - a fellow who lived a whole lot of days - moment by moment - and had a lot of banal thoughts. He ate and excremented and thought about women. He also said some stuff about everyday life and living, which I read on the internet nobbut a few days ago.

His general braininess gives his words a whole lot of credibility. What really makes his thoughts interesting to me, though, is that a lot of it sounds a lot like this Ghandi proverbiage I've been quoting left and right. While I don't agree with everything Einstein or Ghandi said, it just seems telling that two guys like this seem to have come to a lot of the same conclusions, conclusions which also seem to resonate within my mind as being true.

To me, this is a bang-up argument for the existence of a Truth (emphasis on the capital "T") that exherts an almost magnetic pull on the minds of those who earnestly seek it. Who gets closest? Well, I've got my own ideas. The important thing, though, is that you and I try to be one of those people who tries. I believe heartily that if we humbly do, the doors will be opened and we will find an ever-more clear view into the ever-expanding mystery of the way things really ARE.

I doubt that you or I will ever get much closer than Ghandi or Einstein. We'll always have those U2 moments when we feel like we still haven't found what we're looking for. But, ah, what a journey.

So with no further ado, I give you Albert Einstein (cut a bit short by whomever made the site off of which this was cribbed) on The World as He Sees it....

..."How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible."

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude."

"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling."

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

the capitalist lever

Who says the internet is stifling the possibility of meaninful interpersonal contact? What? No one? No one is saying that? Well, good. Then I guess what I'm about to say won't come as a shock to anyone: My friend Chrissy Blankenship and I just had a meaninful chat on gmail.

This is deranged. So deranged, in fact, that with her permission, I'm going to post it on this here web... thing.

Note: Names and genders have been changed to make things secret and mysterious. For instance, my name is not really "me", and "Chrissy Blankenship" isn't Chrissy Blankenship at all. You'll also notice that I keep trying to get out of the conversation and end up repeatedly getting sucked back in. This is why I don't have more paintings to show you.

Our story begins...

Me: Hi, Chrissy.

Chrissy: Hi, Josh.
Whatcha doing?

Me: Taking a little break to play frizbee with the dog. Well, actually I'm trying to type while the cat annoys me by tap-dancing on the keyboard.

Chrissy: A break? From painting or chores?

Me: Chores to start with. I've got about a half hour more of shoveling sawdust to do. Hah! The cat just got it's head stuck in the loop-handle thing for a plastic bag. The noise freaked it out and it tore back and forth the length of the house twice before I was able to catch and release.

Chrissy: How was saturday night?

Me: Saturday night was phenomenal – the absolute bestest night of my life. What happened saturday night? I don't remember. Oh, yeah. Your house. The place with the thing. Not much happened, really.

Chrissy: That's good. I guess.

Me: I should go.

By the way of leaving, though - Ghandi or C.S. Lewis or somebody (I can't remember whom) thought that land speculation was immoral, and I do believe I'm starting to agree. I think investments should be in things that produce or improve something - they shouldn't be a way to take advantage of wealth (capital) to profit off of a limited resource such as land.

Chrissy: What is land speculation?

Me: I think it’s buying land, holding onto it, and selling it later at inflated prices. I guess you could say I think that being paid for nothing more than the fact that you have access to wealth others don’t is wrong, and that raw capitalism shafts the poor. Land speculation makes them unable to buy land and get out of their situation. They just keep paying rising rental costs, which keeps them in poverty.

Chrissy: It's all just supply and demand, baby.

Me: That doesn't mean it's right.

Chrissy: It might not be right. I don't know, but its a natural law - like gravity.

Me: Ixnay. I disagree. Supply and demand is a manifestation of human nature. It can be changed. Gravity cannot. Supply and demand as a principle of general economics is a fact of life, I think, but it’s different than land speculation. For instance, a store that operates on supply and demand provides a service by bringing products to people who could not otherwise get them. But buying land (or other natural resources) because you're rich and can afford it and then selling it for more, later, because people will have to pay in order to live is usury, and it sucks. If people didn't do it the world would be a better place and there would be less of an glaring gap between rich and poor. But we like being the rich.

Chrissy: I'm not an economist so I can't really argue either way. I don't know about markets and what makes them fluctuate, inflation. . . etc. What are the other options?

Me: Invest in a fledgling business that provides a service or product you believe in. Or start such a business. Don't make profit your number one goal. Or at least weigh profit against moral, ecological and spiritual costs when you do your cost-benefit analyses.


Chrissy: What about buy a house and renting it out? That is a service.

Me: Yeah. That is. But then you're providing something. I'm talking about pure raw speculation that uses money as a lever. You’re a steward of the money in your bank account, and a good steward is wise. However, the important issue is motivation. Why did you buy the house? To live in, or to make a profit?

Chrissy: Both. Land has always been (well, not always but for a long time) an important investment. It is one of the only commodities that is guaranteed (as much as possible) to retain its value. If civilization as we know it was destroyed people who owned land could still use it to survive . . . until someone without land came and took it from them.


Me: Yeah, well, the system sucks. You can't fix the system, but you can fix yourself and work from there. You know what though? Screw that! You can fix the system! Look at flippin' Ghandi. If there had been a succession of Ghandi's in India instead of just one, that nation would rule the world with goodness and light. The dude broke the back of British imperialism world wide by inspiring millions of people to sacrifice themselves for the truth. Anybody can do that! You can do that! It’s all about character, man. And being selfish versus being self-sacrificial.

I'm sweating from my armpits. I have to go shovel sawdust now.


Chrissy: Getting fired up to change the world?

Me: Me? No. I'm the world’s most apathetic fool, but the hard truth still appeals to me a lot more than comfortable lies.

Chrissy: But you still live in comfortable lies. The truth is nice to talk about but it's almost impossible to live.

Me: The almost impossible is the only thing worth doing. If you settle for the comfortable lie, then you are settling for living death. Inasmuch as you are able, you have to choose the truth. The ways in which you choose truth (ie, tell your wife you love her) are the ways in which you matter. The ways in which you choose a comfortable lie (ie. live for the money) are the ways in which you wipe out your own name.

Chrissy: You have to pick your battles.

Me: Usually when people say you have to pick your battles, they mean that they are scared of important battles that might get them killed. It is easier to tell half-truths. I know - I do it. That doesn't mean I should accept that about myself. That doesn't mean I should give in to the lies.

Chrissy: What lies?

Me: Consumerism. Wastefulness. Selfishness. Greediness. Laziness. Looks-obsession. Instant gratification. Lust for control, power and posession.

Every one of those is hard to resist. There is no great moral value in resisting things that are not hard to resist. Idealism may be extremist, but without ideals the scientists win and we are all beasts, driven entirely by brute passions, victims of ourselves. The truth is, you cannot escape idealism of some kind.

Idealism is just the pursuit of a grand ideal - it doesn't have to be right or wrong to be an ideal. In the words of Bob Dylan, "you've got to serve somebody". If you think you can coast down the razor's edge of life without throwing yourself (on faith) in with one group or another, you’re wrong. The un-allied person just becomes the pawn of whomever is stronger. Without idealism grounded in truth, idealism grounded in lies wins out. Hitler rules the world. Minorities and the weak get run over by the strong majority.

Chrissy: So what are you going to do?

Me: I don't know. Frick. Maybe preach it more boldly - live it more consistently.

Chrissy: how are you going to live it?

Me: Love more deeply. Consume less, pray more, give more. Evaluate my decisions more and act according to that evaluation, instead of ignoring it. Become a teacher and servant of the truth. Inspire others to do the same. Become more humble by killing myself (spiritually speaking) every single freaking day.

Chrissy: How have you done that today?

Me: I don’t know. I probably haven’t. I was going to get angry at Anya for something stupid and I chose not to. I shoveled poo. I determined to go back outside and do chores so I could come back in and paint a while before my friend from Peru gets here to visit. Then I got into this conversation, which was good, because it helped me to refine the ideas that have been toodling around in my brain and to express them to you - a person who cares to listen.

I still need to go, though, because I am getting hungry. If I get too hungry, it'll be hard to make myself go outside and do manual labor. I enjoy the work, don’t get me wrong. I there is great personal value in working with animals. It forces you to slow down to their more relaxed, less preoccupied pace.

But in closing, I should say that I have decided to either move to the city, which is a less destructive way to live than the suburbs, or the country, which is less destructive than both the city and the suburbs, and also more relaxed.

chrissy: I have always said that too. I would love to live in the country. The city would be good too. A shack on the beach would be the best. Suburbia seems to be a soul killer.

Me: Yeah. In the city there are more people so there's more evil, but there's a better chance of addressing it. Suburbs are filled with too many individual castles.

Chrissy: The city seems to bring more opportunities for real life interaction with real people.

After this whole conversation I have to say I agree with most of what you said except for your assertion that started it all. No . . . I am among those you call poor. I don't really care about lots of capital. Though it would be nice to not have to live at my parents, married no less, in order to get by trying to live the dreams I have in my head.

Me: The desire to live away from parents is a cultural phenomenon almost unique to North America. I honestly have a tough time understanding it.

Chrissy: No. . . not physically. . . economically.

Me: Ah. Yes. I understand that. It is important for a man to forge his own way. But I have to go. Seriously. Release me. I love you, my friend. Bye.

Chrissy: Let's continue this discussion at a later time.

Me: Ok. Bye.

Chrissy: Bye.

Me: Chao.

Chrissy: Chaos.

more ghandi

I came across more Ghandianisms on that great big 'ol propagator of the truth, the internet. So here they is.


A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
Mohandas Gandhi

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.
Mohandas Gandhi

A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.
Mohandas Gandhi

A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.
Mohandas Gandhi

A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.
Mohandas Gandhi

A policy is a temporary creed liable to be changed, but while it holds good it has got to be pursued with apostolic zeal.
Mohandas Gandhi

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.
Mohandas Gandhi

A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion.
Mohandas Gandhi

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
Mohandas Gandhi

A vow is a purely religious act which cannot be taken in a fit of passion. It can be taken only with a mind purified and composed and with God as witness.
Mohandas Gandhi

Action expresses priorities.
Mohandas Gandhi

Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
Mohandas Gandhi

Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation.
Mohandas Gandhi

All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.
Mohandas Gandhi

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
Mohandas Gandhi

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
Mohandas Gandhi

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.
Mohandas Gandhi

An eye for an eye makes us all blind.
Mohandas Gandhi

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
Mohandas Gandhi

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.
Mohandas Gandhi

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
Mohandas Gandhi

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
Mohandas Gandhi

Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.
Mohandas Gandhi

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world - that is the myth of the atomic age - as in being able to remake ourselves.
Mohandas Gandhi

Be the change that you want to see in the world.
Mohandas Gandhi

Before the throne of the Almighty, man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions. For God alone reads our hearts.
Mohandas Gandhi

Better far than cowardice is killing and being killed in battle.
Mohandas Gandhi

Breach of promise is a base surrender of truth.
Mohandas Gandhi

But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.
Mohandas Gandhi

Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.
Mohandas Gandhi

Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.
Mohandas Gandhi

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.
Mohandas Gandhi

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
Mohandas Gandhi

Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.
Mohandas Gandhi

Don't listen to friends when the Friend inside you says 'Do this.'
Mohandas Gandhi

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.
Mohandas Gandhi

Each one prays to God according to his own light.
Mohandas Gandhi

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
Mohandas Gandhi

Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal assent.
Mohandas Gandhi

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.
Mohandas Gandhi

Evil is, good or truth misplaced.
Mohandas Gandhi

Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.
Mohandas Gandhi

Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies.
Mohandas Gandhi

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.
Mohandas Gandhi

Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.
Mohandas Gandhi

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Mohandas Gandhi

For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.
Mohandas Gandhi

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living ?
Mohandas Gandhi

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
Mohandas Gandhi

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.
Mohandas Gandhi

Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it.
Mohandas Gandhi

God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
Mohandas Gandhi

God sometimes does try to the uttermost those whom he wishes to bless.
Mohandas Gandhi

God, as Truth, has been for me a treasure beyond price. May He be so to every one of us.
Mohandas Gandhi

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
Mohandas Gandhi

Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.
Mohandas Gandhi

Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.
Mohandas Gandhi

Human society is a ceaseless growth, an unfoldment in terms of spirituality.
Mohandas Gandhi

I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence.
Mohandas Gandhi

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.
Mohandas Gandhi

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
Mohandas Gandhi

I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.
Mohandas Gandhi

I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.
Mohandas Gandhi

I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.
Mohandas Gandhi

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.
Mohandas Gandhi

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.
Mohandas Gandhi

I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.
Mohandas Gandhi

I have worshipped woman as the living embodiment of the spirit of service and sacrifice.
Mohandas Gandhi

I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace.
Mohandas Gandhi

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mohandas Gandhi

I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to probe into the faults of others.
Mohandas Gandhi

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
Mohandas Gandhi

I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.
Mohandas Gandhi

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
Mohandas Gandhi

I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God's creation, woman, the object of our lust.
Mohandas Gandhi

I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided it is not based on brute force.
Mohandas Gandhi

If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.
Mohandas Gandhi

If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.
Mohandas Gandhi

If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.
Mohandas Gandhi

If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.
Mohandas Gandhi

Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
Mohandas Gandhi

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
Mohandas Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.
Mohandas Gandhi

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
Mohandas Gandhi

Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.
Mohandas Gandhi

Indeed one's faith in one's plans and methods is truly tested when the horizon before one is the blackest.
Mohandas Gandhi

Infinite striving to be the best is man's duty; it is its own reward. Everything else is in God's hands.
Mohandas Gandhi

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.
Mohandas Gandhi

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.
Mohandas Gandhi

Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.
Mohandas Gandhi

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.
Mohandas Gandhi

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
Mohandas Gandhi

It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head.
Mohandas Gandhi

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.
Mohandas Gandhi

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.
Mohandas Gandhi

It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.
Mohandas Gandhi

It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
Mohandas Gandhi

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
Mohandas Gandhi

Just as a man would not cherish living in a body other than his own, so do nations not like to live under other nations, however noble and great the latter may be.
Mohandas Gandhi

Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.
Mohandas Gandhi

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.
Mohandas Gandhi

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.
Mohandas Gandhi

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Mohandas Gandhi

Love never claims, it ever gives. Love ever suffers, never resents never revenges itself.
Mohandas Gandhi

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
Mohandas Gandhi

Man can never be a woman's equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.
Mohandas Gandhi

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
Mohandas Gandhi

Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.
Mohandas Gandhi

Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.
Mohandas Gandhi

Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been know to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.
Mohandas Gandhi

Manliness consists in making circumstances subserve to ourselves.
Mohandas Gandhi

Measures must always in a progressive society be held superior to men, who are after all imperfect instruments, working for their fulfilment.
Mohandas Gandhi

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.
Mohandas Gandhi

Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.
Mohandas Gandhi

Morality which depends upon the helplessness of a man or woman has not much to recommend it. Morality is rooted in the purity of our hearts.
Mohandas Gandhi

My life is my message.
Mohandas Gandhi

My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.
Mohandas Gandhi

Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.
Mohandas Gandhi

No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive.
Mohandas Gandhi

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
Mohandas Gandhi

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good.
Mohandas Gandhi

Non-violence and truth are inseparable and presuppose one another.
Mohandas Gandhi

Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
Mohandas Gandhi

Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be inseparable part of our very being.
Mohandas Gandhi

Non-violence is the article of faith.
Mohandas Gandhi

Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.
Mohandas Gandhi

Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.
Mohandas Gandhi

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.
Mohandas Gandhi

One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.
Mohandas Gandhi

Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.
Mohandas Gandhi

Peace is its own reward.
Mohandas Gandhi

Poverty is the worst form of violence.
Mohandas Gandhi

Prayer is a confession of one's own unworthiness and weakness.
Mohandas Gandhi

Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.
Mohandas Gandhi

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.
Mohandas Gandhi

Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.
Mohandas Gandhi

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.
Mohandas Gandhi

Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one's own religion.
Mohandas Gandhi

Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.
Mohandas Gandhi

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.
Mohandas Gandhi

Self-respect knows no considerations.
Mohandas Gandhi

Spiritual relationship is far more precious than physical. Physical relationship divorced from spiritual is body without soul.
Mohandas Gandhi

Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Mohandas Gandhi

Suffering cheerfully endured, ceases to be suffering and is transmuted into an ineffable joy.
Mohandas Gandhi

Suffering has its well-defined limits. Suffering can be both wise and unwise, and when the limit is reached, to prolong it would be not unwise but the height of folly.
Mohandas Gandhi

That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.
Mohandas Gandhi

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Mohandas Gandhi

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problem.
Mohandas Gandhi

The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.
Mohandas Gandhi

The good man is the friend of all living things.
Mohandas Gandhi

The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mohandas Gandhi

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
Mohandas Gandhi

The law an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Mohandas Gandhi

The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.
Mohandas Gandhi

The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.
Mohandas Gandhi

The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he does becomes tainted.
Mohandas Gandhi

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.
Mohandas Gandhi

The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one's opponent.
Mohandas Gandhi

The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity.
Mohandas Gandhi

The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.
Mohandas Gandhi

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mohandas Gandhi

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
Mohandas Gandhi

There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.
Mohandas Gandhi

There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.
Mohandas Gandhi

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Mohandas Gandhi

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.
Mohandas Gandhi

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.
Mohandas Gandhi

Those who know how to think need no teachers.
Mohandas Gandhi

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.
Mohandas Gandhi

Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all.
Mohandas Gandhi

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
Mohandas Gandhi

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
Mohandas Gandhi

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.
Mohandas Gandhi

Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Mohandas Gandhi

Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
Mohandas Gandhi

Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.
Mohandas Gandhi

Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.
Mohandas Gandhi

Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself.
Mohandas Gandhi

Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.
Mohandas Gandhi

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
Mohandas Gandhi

We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?
Mohandas Gandhi

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.
Mohandas Gandhi

We must become the change we want to see in the world.
Mohandas Gandhi

We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.
Mohandas Gandhi

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.
Mohandas Gandhi

What is true of the individual will be to-morrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.
Mohandas Gandhi

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.
Mohandas Gandhi

When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.
Mohandas Gandhi

When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.
Mohandas Gandhi

Where love is, there God is also.
Mohandas Gandhi

Where there is love there is life.
Mohandas Gandhi

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
Mohandas Gandhi

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
Mohandas Gandhi

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mohandas Gandhi

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Mohandas Gandhi

salespeople

The Welcome Wagon rings yesterday and insists on infiltrating my home. Like most people, I'm not that thrilled to be called out of the blue by peppy people I don't know from Adam, but The Welcome Wagon sounds like a nice lady so I decide not to just bark loudly and hang up. After she's bulldozed through about three different times I figure are unacceptable for invasion, I summon the courage to ask what exactly it is that she does.

"Oh!" she gushes, "I just come around and welcome you into the neighborhood. I bring by some free gifts and tell you about some services that are available in the area."

FREE, FREE, YIPPEEEEE! goes the dutch part of my brain. DANGER - SALESPERSON - DANGER! goes my reasonable hemisphere. A raging battle is pitched and my hypothalamus suggests that I just put her off a moment while I come up with a plan. "Um. I'm not really the schedule person here, I'll have to check with my wife" I say.

"No problem," she says, "I only need one of you to be there. Listen, I'm doing this on Thursday afternoon, so I'll just pencil you in around three. Here's my number - 555-Roadkiller - goodbye." Click.

Geez, that was interesting, I think. But Thursday is a long way off, so I'll just put it in the back of my brain.

Then today (Wendsday) I get home and there's a message on my machine saying "where are you? It's about three-fifteen and our appointment was for three." News to me. Oh well, though. Another awkward situation avoided.

Then she says she'll leave some goodies with my landlady and will try to come by for a follow up to convince me that I need a high-tech alarm system that will call me to tell me I'm being burgled. Unfortunately, I have no cell phone, so if I am out they will just have to leave a message. Hopefully the theif won't take the machine, or I'll never know what happened.

I love salespeople. Love 'em. So here's the deal: if you're a salesperson in need of a sale, I'm dedicating the last week of this month to you. Drop on by and I swear on my mother's last tooth I will buy at least one of whatever you got. My address is 12345 Calamity Lane, Death Valley, AZ. I'm looking forward to it.

ghandi

I just recently finished "Ghandi, an Autobiography: the Story of my Experiments with Truth". Rather than tell you what I thought of it, I will both empty myself and allow you to experience it directly through Ghandi's own words. Plus, it's a thick, slow read, and I know you're a very busy person.

“I worship God as Truth only. I have not yet found Him, but I am seeking after Him.”

“The world crushes the dust under its feet, but the seeker after truth should humble himself that even the dust could crush him.”

“in friendship there is very little scope for reform. I am of opinion that all exclusive intimacies are to be avoided; for man takes in vice far more readily than virtue. And he who would be friends with God must remain alone, or make the whole world his friend.”

“Prayer needs no speech. It is in itself independent of any sensuous effort. I have not the slightest doubt that prayer is an unfailing means of cleansing the heart of passions. But it must be combined with the utmost humility.”

“Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.”

“My experience has shown me that we win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.”

“I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there I s a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one’s waggon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life.”

“I understood the Gita teaching of non-possession to mean that those who desired salvation should act like the trustee who, though having control over great possessions, regards not an iota of them as his own.”

“I know it is argued that the soul has nothing to do with what one eats or drinks, as the soul neither eats nor drinks’ that it is not what you put inside from without, but what you express outwardly from within, that matters. There is no doubt some force in this. But rather than examine this reasoning, I shall content myself with merely declaring my firm conviction that, for the seeker who would live in fear of God and who would see Him face to face, restraint in diet both as to quantity and quality is as essential as restraint in thought and speech.”

“Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked, always deserves respect or pity as the case may be. ‘Hate the sin and not the sinner’ is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world. This ahimsa is the basis of the search for truth. I am realizing every day that the search is vain unless it is founded on ahimsa as the basis. It is quite proper to resist and attack the system, but to resist and attack its author is tantamount to resisting and attacking oneself. For we are all tarred with the same brush, and are children of one and the same Creator, and as such the divine powers within us are infinite. To slight a single human being is to slight those divine powers and thus to harm not only that being but with him the whole world.”

“I have not seen Him, neither have I known Him. I have made the world’s faith in God my own, and as my faith is ineffaceable, I regard that faith as amounting to experience. However, as it may be said that to describe faith as experience is to tamper with truth, it may perhaps be more correct to say that I have no word for characterizing my belief in God.”

“the sole aim of journalism should be service. The newspaper press is a great power but just as an unchained torrent of water submerges whole countrysides and devastates crops, even so an uncontrolled pen serves but to destroy. If the control is from without, it proves more poisonous than want of control. It can be profitable only when exercised from within. If this line of reasoning is correct, how many of the journals of the world would stand the test? But who would stop those that are useless? And who should be the judge? The useful and useless must, like good and evil generally, go on together, and man must make his choice.”

“Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises, self-restraint.”

“For perfection or freedom from error comes only from grace, and so seekers after God have left us mantras, such as Ramanama, hallowed by their own austerities and charged with their purity. Without an unreserved surrender to His grace, complete mastery over thought is impossible.”

“When each organ of sense subserves the body and through the body the soul, its special relish disappears, and then alone does it begin to function in the way nature intended it to. Any number of experiments is too small and no sacrifice is too great for attaining this symphony with nature. But unfortunately the current is now-a-days flowing strongly in the opposite direction. We are not ashamed to sacrifice a multitude of other lives in decorating the perishable body and trying to prolong its existence for a few fleeting moments, with the result that we kill ourselves, both body and soul. In trying to cure one old disease, we give rise to a hundred new ones; in trying to enjoy the pleasures of sense, we lose in the end even our capacity for enjoyment. All this is passing before our very eyes, but there are none so blind as those who will not see.”

“The concupiscence of the mind cannot be rooted out except by intense self-examination, surrender to God and, lastly, grace.”

“Those who make light of dietetic restrictions and fasting are as much in error as those who stake their all on it.”

“A devotee of Truth may not do anything in deference to convention. He must always hold himself open to correction, and whenever he discovers himself to be wrong he must confess it at all costs and atone for it.”
“It is my rule… to understand the viewpoint of the party I propose to deal with, and to try to agree with him as far as may be possible.”

“Service without humility is selfishness and egotism.”

“Human language can but imperfectly describe God’s ways. I am sensible of the fact that they are indescribable and inscrutable. But if mortal man will dare to describe them, he has no better medium than his own inarticulate speech.”

“If I could popularize the use of soul-force, which is but another name for love-force, in place of brute force, I know that I could present you with an India that could defy the whole world to do its worst.”

“A Satyagrahi obeys the laws of society intelligently and of his own free will because he considers it his sacred duty to do so. It is only when a person has thus obeyed the laws of society scrupulously that he is thus in a position to judge as to which particular rules are good and just and which unjust and iniquitous.”

“The little fleeting glimpses, therefore, that I have been able to have of Truth can hardly convey an idea of the indescribeable luster of Truth, a million times more intense than that of the sun we daily see with our eyes.”

“God can never be realized by one who is not pure of heart… But the path of self-purification is hard and steep. To attain to perfect purity one has to become absolutely passion-free in thought, speech and action; to rise above the opposing currents of love and hatred, attachment and repulsion. I know that I have not in me as yet that triple purity, in spite of constant ceaseless striving for it.”

“I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures there is no salvation for him.”

my missing link

I got a comment on my last post from someone who said I just sounded short on inspiration, and I should sniff some glue or something. The problem with that analysis (which my webmaster says I can't publish cause it was anonymous) is that I've got a truckload of ideas. I have a list, in fact, of eight wonderful culture-jamming painting ideas that I could rip out in a month if I felt like it. There's a block there, but it's not creative. I think it's made of foam rubber or existential angst or something.

It is more a question of who I am.

Who am I? I mean, there's the boring hard facts: Josh Barkey, born on August 12, 1979 in Lancaster, South Carolina. Raised in the amazon basin of Peru, South America. Nominally-post-secondarily educated at TWU and in the hard-knock world of norther British Columbian tree planting. Sleight of build, late of bloom, tender of heart, and fond of art he can't quite understand. Born into the aristocracy (globally and historically speaking, of course), afflicted with all the apathy and selfishness and cynicism of his kind. Moderately talented, like most people, at a cornucopia of activities - chess, tennis, snowboarding, painting, ping-pong, witty banter, drawing, elocution, propagation of ideas, soccer, poetry, fishing and singing. Short on freinds and long on patience. Possessed of a character the generous would call solid and noble, the uncharitable, boring. Married with a dog named Edgar and a cat named Wormwood (both black as sin and twice as affectionate) to show for it. Uncle to four neice and nephew's-in-law, writer of numerous unpublished children's stories.

Those are the blase facts, the sort of things around which you construct the soul of a story or an identity you can hijack for your own nefarious purposes. But for God's sake (and I mean that) who the forkrying out loud am I?

THAT is the question.




As a post script...

P.S. The only answer I can come up with is this - watch "The Million Dollar Hotel". This seriously underrated and, in my personal experience, misunderstood picture really gets to the guts of who we is. If I could listen to that movie and feel it and BE it, maybe I could stop toodling around on this website and start living. Besides, how can a movie Bono produced and acted in (don't blink - you'll miss him) be wrong? The guy's a freakin' icon of tortured self-recrimination.

P.S.S. Bono, if you're there, the offer still stands on the "sometimes I feel like checkin' out painting". I'm looking at it now - it's sooo YOU.

in sanity

What does it mean to be sane, and how does one get in it?

If sanity is knowing and living in awareness of the truth, is anyone?


paint paint paint paint paint paint paint pain paint paint paint paint paint.

I have holes in my heels and hell is a hole in your socks. I feel as though I deserve to be neglected, rejected and beaten for an hour with hard, uncomfortable pillows - or realities. Why? For wasting air. Wasting air is a killing offense - they kill you for it. And you know what - everybody waste's air, so they kill us all. Every last man jack of us.

You think that bit gave you a peice of me? Maybe.

The truth is, I will not let you all see all in. My eye's aren't windows to my soul - they're torpedo tubes to blast holes in other people's intentions. Not to see truth - oh no - truth is invisible before the rods and cones that groan within my sockets to be plugged into the real.

Do you hear me? This is my fear and I know you feel it too. That I will fall like a stone from a ledge, hit dust and poof! be forgotten. Insanity is a retreat, a way to say I won't go because I don't know if I can trust my reason or my feelings or anything else.

These three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

maybe you know

I don't know if there's anything left to say, really. I wrote down an entry entitled "the answer to everything" and capped it off with "the bare bodkin". It's all come down to the point that everything you do matters and that you shouldn't do it for yourself, and all that is left with is to get on here and write down all the ways I'm not measuring up to my own ideals.

Two years ago, I was hitching a ride to the ferry in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island from one of the owners of the planting company I was working for. The conversation tripped into the topic of money and stewardship and frugality and my views on it all and this world-weary head of a company destined for bankruptcy just kind of chuckled to himself and said, in an unintentionally patronizing sort of way, "yeah, I used to feel that way. Idealism's all very well and good when you're young, but just wait until you get older and you have kids".

I'm not gonna lie to you - a lot of the time I feel like just throwing in with that lot. My extremist ways might be true and right, but everybody compromises. Why not be intentional about that compromise and write off all the stress of "thinking too much".

I think I was twelve when I first started getting accused of thinking too much. Is that bad? Am I wrong? Is the life spent traipsing after self just better? I guess I sound like I'm in a blue funk, but I'm really not. I'm putting an authentic wonder on. It just seems like I'm swimming upcurrent here, and I'm really not strong enough for all that. Maybe you know what's up.

the bare bodkin

I've been reading Ghandi's autobiography, and it's gotten me thinking. Yup, that's right - I'm a guy, I'm thinking, and it's not about sex.

The philosopher's creed states that the unexamined life is not worth living. Basically, that's a sit-around-and-think guy's way to justify himself and make everybody else look bad. There is some truth there, but only inasmuch as the examination leads to right action. The real philosopher's creed, I think, ought to state that the selfish life is not worth living. This is, as Shakespeare would put it, the bare bodkin of the matter.

I will start my argument (come on, let’s argue lets!) from this unassailable point: Love is the highest virtue. If you don't agree with that, hit yourself in the head with a frozen salmon and try again. OK, now that you agree, I will go on to assert that self-sacrifice is the highest form of love. To live the most virtuous life, then, one must be the most self-sacrificial. This demands self-sacrifice irregardless of circumstances, even to the death. Ouch.

Why do I think self-sacrifice is the highest form of love? Because it requires the lover to believe that the sacrifice is worth it. While there is a lot of evidence of this to the person who looks with the purpose of actually seeing, there are also a lot of elements in our make-up that try to give the lie to this. As long as this contention exists in a person's mind, there can be no ultimate proof.

The conflict comes from a very real problem that a proponent of self-sacrifice encounters - that this sort of love is really rather foolish. This is because foolishness and wisdom are functions tied inextricably with the brain. The brain is biological and therefore subject to the biological imperative, which requires those things that are alive to live at all costs. Therefore the call to self sacrifice (even and especially unto death)is at odds with our makeup in a very fundamental, real way.

Here’s where I make one of those seemingly (and possibly) totally obvious statements: selfishness and selfless-ness exist at odds with each other. This is not to say, however, that they cannot be reconciled. They can, but it is the fusion and cooperation of the two wherein lies our greatest difficulty. Self-love, you see, is still a form of love. That makes it a good thing. In a situation where you are forced to choose one or the other, however, it is always better to allow that non-corporeal, self-sacrificial area of yourself override your biological imperative. The difficulty is distinguishing when those situations occur and then acting correctly. I think that thought, that slippery brain-bashing concept is the soul of the issue.

So far I’ve been meandering around in ethereal head-space, yammering about abstract concepts. This may be some lofty ideal, but it has some seriously relevant, burn-your-face-off implications – which is why you and I mostly just say (out loud and by implication) – “screw that!” I can understand this, because the objections to self-sacrifice are dyed-in-the-wool constitutional. Generally, they take on a utilitarian (rational) or hyper-cognitive (emotive) manifestation.

Frick, there I go again – back into that head space. Let me restate. If somebody is in a situation where the imperative to sacrifice their self sneaks up and rings their soul’s doorbell and they do not want to give in, they will generally take one or both of two escape routes. First, they will respond with their emotions (what feels right just then) and say, “shut the fu… crying out lout… why the hell would I want to do that?” Having absolutely nuked this squirrel of a problem, they will proceed to do whatever they feel like. This is the resort of fools and therefore, I think, not really worth addressing.

The second tack is more compelling. They’ll reason: “Sure, it would be great if everybody was like that – but they won’t be. Therefore I, as the person being self-sacrificial, will merely be taken advantage of. That’s foolish and stupid and a waste of my life.” I will call this the utilitarian-universal-maxim combo approach. It’s pretty beguiling when you consider that all a person can really KNOW is wherever and whenever and however they happen to be at the moment – and that only rather imperfectly. Since we are creatures of the mind, how can we get past this? Selfishness is one of our most inherent human characteristics, exacerbated by the fact that we live in a cultural environment primarily controlled by the secular humanist religion, which teaches selfishness as a virtue.

And why wouldn’t it? Why, in a post-enlightenment, post-Deity, post-truth society that worships scientific inquiry above and before all else, would anybody want to forego personal gain for the good of others? That future generations might be able to breathe clean air? That our grandchildren might live in a world where there is more than one type of rice to eat? It sounds nice, but it doesn’t jive with what I know about myself and about my fellow peoples. We’re creatures of the NOW. We’re known as “the ME generation”. Or (to put it the way I feel it) we suck.

Fortunately, self-sacrifice is the TRUTH. It is embodied, to greater and lesser degrees, by the world’s true heroes: Ghandi, Jesus, Socrates, Mother Theresa, and you and me, inasmuch as we allow it. It IS the best way to live, as unreasonable as it may seem. That Reality seeps in under doorways and through walls. It infects good marriages and good parent-child relationships. It can be suppressed but not stamped out, crushed but not destroyed.

For myself, I will chose to fight the prevailing thought of my biological mind, that champions the self at all times at the cost of all others. I will attempt to subsume my love of self, when the call is given, to a higher love and purer truth. I will eat more organic. I will delineate more clearly between “I need” and “I want” and buy accordingly. I will keep my eyes open and my mouth shut. I will skate on the edge of insanity, twirling without thought of the consequence. I will die to myself a little more each day. And I will hug you more often, if you let me.

brave new world

I weave the fruit aisles at the local Save-On. It is a rainy January in Canada, 2006. Mangos are on sale – 99 cents. I hear a noise and look up. A small brown bird flutters nervously around the antiseptic, white-painted framework that is the rafters. My mind does a loop-de-loop and suddenly I am back in the world of 1984, feeling queasy. I am twenty-five feet up in the branches of a mango tree with a boy I will call Michael Smith and there is something not-quite-right about the look in his eyes.

He is average for a five year old jungle boy – wiry, lean, with an independent shock of hair swishing across his eyes. He wears a plaid hand-me-down shirt with snaps. His feet are bare, calloused and cracked. His shorts are tattered and his eyes are blue – blue like the sea during a shipwrecking storm. Blue like the sky right before that very first leap from the clouds with a piece of silk on your back. I suppose you could say that the overall effect of Michael’s appearance is of a pleasant, polite young kid, but he doesn’t leave you a whole lot of time to dwell on it.

There are clouds on the horizon. I’d like to say they are ominous, but we are in the Amazon rainforest. If there were no clouds, that would be ominous. Still, the way they reflect in Michael’s eyes makes his corneas look misted, like he is seeing off into a world of his own. In time, everyone at Yarina will come to know that there is something a little… well… “off” about Michael. For me, though, this is the first inkling – in the mango tree by a house where some Campa natives live.

All little boys love to clamber over things and Michael and I have been lucky enough to be born into an all-natural, free-of-charge, jungle gym grocery store. We are still too young to know the clanking shackles of the educatory experience, so our days are spent moving from fruit tree to fruit tree, eating until we can eat no more and then bouncing and gurgling our way to the ground like bloated sacs of juice – a carnivorous hummingbird’s dream. Nothing in our location in this tree, therefore, would in any way indicate to the casual observer that Michael is a fruit of a different flavor.

That is, until he turns and bayonets me with a certain devilish look that many will come to know and fear and says, “OK, Josh. This is why I brought you here. Me first, then you next.” Without further ado, Michael launches, fires, catapults and projects himself out into space. Arms and legs splayed to the corners of the earth he sails boldly forth, like a mutant flying squirrel who is tragically oblivious to the fact that he has been born membrane free.

Out, out, out he sails. Out past the thinning mango branches he sails with poise and grace, until gravity says “hello” and he falls through the air with the greatest of ease. Down, down, down to the overlapped branches of another mango tree, loosing a blood-curling screech that permanently curdles my spleen and a good part of my liver. He clutches desperately at the branches with his orphan monkey hands until the greenery embraces him, lowers him, and rolls him gently onto the thick, black loamy soil below.

And I up on high, caught between the dying echoes of a piercing shriek and the comforting scent of ripe, luscious mangoes, squat on the secure branch and sense that I have encountered one of life’s defining moments. A choice is there, so palpable you can almost feel its warmth running down your leg. It is a moment where, if you are paying attention, you can feel the almost imperceptible shift that accompanies the birth of an era. His eyes catch mine and I know my world has suddenly grown very, very dangerous. Far off, I hear the flutter of little bird’s wings.

“Your turn!” he yells.


NOTE: This is the first of a series of stories. If someone I did not grow up with is authentically interested, I'll serialize them on this site. If not, forget it, done, bye.