Jesus praise Jesus
In Jesus name we pray
Jesus praise Jesus
We are thankful for this day
On this day Miyamoto Musashi
Began writing
The book of five rings
A warrior handbook
About martial arts and every other thing
I was listening to it walking into the city last night
On my way to watch Tyson Fury beat Deontay Wilder
I like Fury a lot but I was rooting for Wilder
I always root for the underdog
Listening to the forward of the book I took notes
In the middle of Manhattan
On a Saturday night
Kids dressed up for the party
Me dressed up in long Adidas shorts
A purple champion tee with the sleeves cut off
And baby blue Hokas with black socks on my feet
I looked at myself from above and joked
When did you stop giving a f**k
#dadlife
And then my next thought was
I still prefer my outfit to everyone else out here
It was like I time traveled from a 90’s grunge band into the center of 2021
I even have the long hair and goatee
Anyway back to the notes on the five rings
The mind should not be detained by things
Don’t fall into one sided ness
Correctness is to move the mind about anywhere
The effort not to stop the mind (or trap it in a single space as media tempts us to do)
Put the mind nowhere and
It will be everywhere
The book of five rings.
Transcend the interference of the self
Birth
Water
Fire
Wind
Emptiness
The five elements
The five rings ////
Let the mind be free
Let the mind stay unstuck
These are my words now
Disconnecting from the mainframe has allowed me this
As
Has reengaging with a twelve step
Community
And making that daily check in part of my routine
As with couples counseling and the positive effects it has on me and your mama
The twelve step
Let’s you know you are trying to uplevel your behavior
You start investing into counting days
Like dollar cost averaging into crypto
Your investment builds
And when life gets rough
You’re invested into coping with it in a positive framework
You’ll think twice
Before throwing your days away
And you have the habit etched in the neuropathways
Like avenues of
Behavior
To positively deal with whatever
Keep the brain nowhere
So that you can be everywhere
I’ve escaped the toxic dialog
I’ve escaped the argument
My voice is alive
I can still speak my mind
Nevermind the unbelievable amount of pressure and retribution there has been to protect that right
Nevermind all that
I am still free to say what I believe
What an unbelievable accomplishment these days
And it’s worth the price
These days
I was talking to an old friend
He said
I feel foolish talking to you because I am a
Coward but I can’t provide for my family and say what I think at the same time
I told him I understand and I am factoring that reality into my decisions lately
But it struck me as I walked home that day
After he said that
Since we are time traveling in this blog
Imagine me traveling back to the 90’s
Still dressed in long Adidas shorts
Light blue hokas
And a purple champion shirt with cut off sleeves
(No one would bat an eye at my outfit except they may ask about my future shoes)
Imagine
If I called
My friend
From back in time and said
In the future in America
You will have to choose between saying what you believe out loud and providing for your family
Imagine what his reaction would be
He would ask
What happened?
Where would I begin ?
Perhaps the poem I wrote yesterday
Which maybe will become a song
There is no left or right
There is authoritarians And libertarians
There is people who think freedom is the moral high ground
Versus those who think it’s wrong
To say your thoughts
To sing your own song
And no amount of logic/Will shift the public throng/ The group think virtue signal
Showing which side you are on
Now Chappelle is cancelled
And who is cancelled next
Anyone who speaks a thought
Authoritarians have hexed?The media says that’s liberal/ But anyone can see
The words are upside down when
Libs the opposite of free/Oppression is oppression /Call it what you want
I wonder/ Whose the next free thinker
The mob will come to hunt?
You’re not aloud to say this
That’s a thought you shouldn’t think
The group will dislocate you
And throw you in the drink
Kiss the acne goddess
There are words you shouldn’t say and
If you make those certain sounds
The group will make you pay
Tribalism politics
Express a common rage
If you buck the system
We’ll introduce you to a cage
First comes public ridicule
The mob blows up your page
To show the other people
How they teach us to behave
Friends and family shun you
Kicked off every stage
The ones who claim to care the most
Are the ones who dig your grave
And no amount of oppression /Will ever be enough/ After all it’s for your safety
The hands they need to cuff
And those you thought would stand for freedom /Are the first to give it up
The artists rock n rollers
Concerned with money in their cup
The play for their agenda/An agenda of control
Entertaining you with music
For the ones who steal your soul
And the ones who do stand up
And say that somethings wrong
You’re told that they are lunatics/With nowhere to belong/And you wish that you could defend them/But inside you’re not that strong
So your silence is permission
It tells the brave ones they are wrong
And silently you go /As the group destroys each one/Who take a chance to stand against them/ Who go by the beat of their own drum
One by one they disappear them/And then the group is much more strong/Your ability to think/ For yourself is nearly gone/And maybe that is better/After all you have been wrong/ So you make yourself much smaller/ And silent to belong/ And look what they did to him And to her/ When they were strong/You make yourself much smaller/And silent to belong /It’s a line in easy rider/They’re scared because you’re free
Or in a commercial for the army/ Be all that you can be/ Inspire half the world/ With a vision they can see/ Evolution of a dream like The Buddha and the tree/ fix your inner vision to a place where you are free/ a place where they can’t touch you/ where you are you and I am me/ where we can speak our minds and at the same time/ still be free.
I watched Chapelle’s latest special with your mama before the fights.
Then I wrote this with an intention to share it
Watched Chappelle’s latest
Didn’t think it was that funny
Actually thought it was aggressively unfunny at points
And during it I thought he went on too long about trans stuff and his controversy in that universe
But I have to say
He landed it with a heartfelt tale of friendship that connects us all on a human level
No matter what we are
We are unified in our human experience
I don’t think there is any of us who get through this plane easily
Or without much difficulty
You can try to categorize and separate people
And obviously some communities have more to overcome than others
But on a personal level
Person to person
You never know another’s story or their lived experience
What their childhood was like
What they’ve overcome
You can’t tell those things by sexes or skin tones
So it’s best to empathize with all
Give love to all
Be compassionate to all
And allow people to take chances to express complicated subjects without the tar and feathers
So that we can heal as a collective community
And edge towards being unified whether we like it or not. Travel as equals.
Not sure if I will share it or not outside of this blog
On social media I mean
I’d rather just share art and pics of you being cute as hell 🙂
I just want peace
And for people to love and get along
And be free
It’s the free part that makes all the others more complicated
Because I want all those things
Without feeling bullied into silence
I don’t want to feel cowardly as my friend feels
Where part of him is stuffed down
And made small
And then drives him crazy from within
I want to spread out and soar
Be like an eagle flying through endless skies
Dream with unhinged abandon
Become a giant in my capacity to inspire
Chappelle said when you take away a mans ability to make a living
You kill the man
Your mama and I both got silent
Both of us considering the enormity of what both of us had been through
And in the months of you entering the world
Meanwhile you
Just smile and giggle
And know nothing of the complications
This world revolves around
Your mind unstuck
Not defined by any one source
Flipping this way and that
Not even stuck on any emotion
Just free to explore and be
What a joy to be in your presence
What a joy to be reminded every morning what it is to be infinitely alive
What a gift
Praise Jesus
The funny thing is when I think of the losses in speaking my mind
In questioning a product of big pharma
With no long term tests and experimental nature
And I guess due to what the media told people to feel about questions like those
Showed me how susceptible to external influence people really are
How susceptible to group think
And you could flip it and say
Ahh yes but you are also part of a group think
A community who thinks and feels a certain way
And to that I would say
Possibly
Or even potentially agree
(Though my mind is unstuck as the five rings tell me it must be)
But here’s the difference
I don’t hate anyone for thinking how they think
As long as they don’t try to disallow me
To think the way I think
I wouldn’t ask anyone to stop expressing what they think
I would encourage everyone
To express themselves authentically
And without fear
(I’m not speaking about extremes here
Such as overt racism or the like)
I lost a band with a double album in the can
A great record
That’s what hurts the most
Also the podcast for which I was the host
Just cause I said
Hey wait a minute
Should we give this thing to kids?
That seems kind of foolish
When it won’t threaten if they live
And I still believe that
No I’m not anti vaxx
Or an unhinged lunatic
Or a right wing nut job
As anyone gets cast when they question
The mainstream media’s shrinking agenda
They’re even throwing Russell Brand in that pile now
And Chappelle
How long before all the cool kids
Are cast this way?
(Side note Russell said I had one article call me alt right and an anti vaxxer and I wanted to hide in hole for the rest of time. And he’s saying that comfortably rich with four million YouTube subscribers all telling him how amazing he is. Your boy went through much worse than that with much less. Just saying. God is good)
I’m the same guy I always was
I still believe in travel as equals
I still want to obsessively sing about freedom as I did all through 90’s and beyond
I didn’t change
They did
Or maybe that’s unfair and too victim-y?
And anyway we all change
Everyday is a new creation
But what I mean is
I’m the same guy with the same heart
As I was to the friends I lost over an opinion
And I think many of us are going through
Similar transitions
Similar losses
At the end of his life Miyamoto Musashi
Wrote 21 rules of life
1. Accept everything just the way it is
2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake
3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling
4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world
5. Be detached from desire your whole life long
6. Do not regret what you have done
7. Never be jealous
8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation
9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself or others
10. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love
11. In all things have no preferences
12. Be indifferent to where you live
13. Do not pursue the taste of good food
14. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need
15. Do not act following customary beliefs
16. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful
17. Do not fear death
18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age
19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help
20. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour
21. Never stray from the Way
Rule 8
About not being saddened by separation
Is the one that stands to me now.
It’s easier said then done
But still
Knowing it should be done gives you a leg up in a season of loss
Life moves on
People move on
And if people have rejected the wonder of you
Well my dear
I’ll say two things
1. We’ve all been there
And baby
It’s their loss.