I made clams for dinner. When I was at the market I decided to buy seven innocent looking little-rock clams. I would take them home and cook them up into a nutritious meal. I new that clams were high in copper and lately I have been feeling like I need to eat more copper. It would be healthy, simple and hassle free.

I had never cooked clams before. I recalled what my father once told me years ago about cooking clams. “Wash, scrub, brine and boil until the little suckers snap right open!” When I began preparations cooking the clams I noticed that one of the clams suddenly opened and then shut. I was startled because I had forgotten that clams are living creatures until they are killed by the boiling water. Suddenly eating clams for dinner seemed a little less appetizing to me.

There is almost no boundary between my sensitivity to the mystery of life and my phobic terror of it. In my greatest moments of pleasure I always feel that at any second something can go terribly wrong. I was excited about the idea of eating clams for dinner until I realized that they were alive. I live in a culture where I am very removed from the process of having to kill the food I eat. Suddenly, I was the one who had to do the killing- and this felt strange. As I washed the clams under cold running water I could swear that I felt them moving inside their tightly clamped shells. My initial reaction to this sensation was to drop the clam into the sink like one does when they are suddenly repulsed by something (in Hebrew the same word is used to connote both “awe” and “fear”). I became so discouraged about the idea of cooking/killing the clams that I wanted to take them and set them free in the river beside my house. But I had spent eleven dollars on them- and that felt like to much money to just throw away.

I added a small amount of white wine and lemon juice to a pot. I put the pot on the stove and turned on the burner. I could feel my heart beating in my neck as I imagined myself suffering a terrible sickness or worse, dying from eating the clams. I recalled the horror stories that I had heard about various people who had become stricken with terrible sicknesses after eating clams. I added some butter to the broth which was beginning to boil.

With one hand shaking and my head filled with uncontrollable thoughts of impending doom- I added the clams one by one to the boiling broth. In the back round I could hear a Beatles song playing on my radio. “Hey!! you got to hide your love away,” the lyrics said. I covered the pot with a lid and went to the sink and obsessively washed my hands which I was concerned were covered in a deadly bacteria that I had once read about people contracting from touching clams. As I washed my hands I could swear that I heard the dying screams of clams. Sounded like a high pitched cry. I opened the lid to the boiling pot and noticed that all the little suckers had snapped open their shells except one. This one hung on to life, unwilling to surrender. I meditated upon the clam for a moment as I waited for it to snap open its shell. It did not. It remained shut unwilling to let go and be at peace. This clam reminded me a lot of myself.

I put the clams in a bowl along with the broth and squeezed fresh lemon on top. I set my dinner table for one and put salt and pepper beside my spoon and fork. The smell of clams reminded me of my youth. I sat down at the dinner table with my bowl of steaming clams and with my fork I grabbed one of the clams out from its shell. I held it up to my nose to make sure it did not have a rancid smell. It smelled like the sea in winter time so I put the clam into my mouth and chewed. And chewed. And chewed. And chewed. And then swallowed. It was delicious but I was nervous. Negative thoughts ran laps around the inside of my mind. What if the clam that I had just swallowed was bad? What if I get sick? I started to have visions of myself dying alone on my living room hardwood floor. My body began to shake like one who has crossed the point of no return. I took a sedative pill and drank a beer straight down. In times of anxiety- beer is the only substance that can calm me down.

I was frustrated because I could not eat the clams in peace. I wanted to enjoy my meal which smelled so good. Instead, I was in panic and already beginning to feel nauseous. My nervous system was turned upside down and would not allow me to sit still. Was I feeling guilty because I killed clams? Was I uncomfortable about cooking clams because I knew nothing about how to do it? Why was I clamming up? I searched for clues to my anxiety but I was able to come up with only one answer. Ditch the clams. I stood up from my dinner table and took the bowl of clams outside with me. I looked up at the moon which was full and then walked over to my neighbors house. I poured the bowl of eleven dollar clams into my neighbors cat food dish. She has seven cats and I figured that at least the cats could enjoy them. I ended up eating raw carrots and nuts for dinner and then going to bed early.

Before the age of twelve I was already sticking my small penis inside various objects with holes in them. Toilet paper rolls, hoses, wine bottles, ketchup bottles and the onion bagels my mother would bring home every Sunday morning. I fashioned my own holes out of hamburger meat from the freezer, potatoes and the watermelons that my father grew in our backyard. By the age of fifteen I was a fiend who utilized everything that I could get my hands on for sexual gratification. I gave myself blow jobs with my sisters hair dryer. I stole my mothers diaphragm and stuck it up my rear end. I masturbated habitually to my fathers pornography magazines and I wondered when the time would come that I would have the opportunity to act out my fantasies on a member of the opposite sex.

When I was sixteen I tried to sneak into strip clubs with a fake ID but was rejected every time. I tried to convince a prostitute to let me stick my penis in her for fifteen dollars but she refused because she did not want to live with the guilt that she had corrupted a minor. I continued to have sex with holes and even found a way to place my penis inside of my bathroom sink drain. Desperation is the mother of all ingenuity.

When I was seventeen I had a babysitter who dressed me up like Tarzan. She stripped me down naked and tied one of my fathers belts around my waist. She then covered my crotch with a small kitchen cloth and my butt was covered with one of my fathers dress socks- both hanging from the belt. I wore my mothers tennis head band over my long hair and put my sisters red lipstick on. She would then chase me all over the house until she would tackle me on the ground and order me to “scream like the little jungle pervert you are” over and over as she tickled me relentlessly. Sometimes the cloth that covered my crotch would come off and reveal the erection that I would get when she was sitting on top of me. Her only response to this natural human phenomena was “look.. little Tarzan’s pee pee wants to say hi.” I was humiliated and immediately covered myself back up. She was never sexual with me but was rather what I would call a tease. After we were finished with our games I would sit outside on the front door steps with her and watch her smoke and blow smoke rings with big holes. I always fantasized about sticking my penis inside one of those hole but I never was able to ask her if I could.

It was not until I was eighteen that I was finally able to stick my penis inside a member of the opposite sex. I remember my mother lecturing me upon the virtues of waiting for true love until I gave away my virginity. In fact a lot of people that I knew at that time were talking about waiting until they found true love, the person that they were going to marry before they had sex. I never judged them for this decision that they seemed committed to upholding but for me the idea was insane. I was not concerned about true love, nor did I care about giving away my virginity. I wanted to fuck and if I did not do so soon I was going to be a danger to myself, my family and society. I had already started contemplating ways to stick my penis inside the beautiful white horse that lived down the street from my house. I contemplated having sex with cats and cows. When I orgasmed my semen shot ten feet into the distance because of all the pent up pressure. No, I was not concerned with true love, I needed to get laid. Like I said to my mother on my way out the front door the night that I would have sex for the first time….”mom, true love can wait.”

I happen to be a lover of breasts. I am also adamantly against bombs. This morning when I was on a walk and dealing with various thoughts of impending doom- I had an idea. Why not start a non-profit organization called Breasts Not Bombs? The value of the idea was greatest in its ability to get my mind off of obsessive thoughts of impending doom. Rather than thinking about my own death, I was able to focus upon the visual imagery of breasts. These breasts belonged to no women in particular but rather they were universal breasts belonging to all women.

As I walked through the park with an image of youthful breasts swinging around in my head- I found that the anxiety that I was suffering from moments ago had passed. There is something about the image of breasts that calms the central nervous system. Breasts are nurturing, comforting, cooling and there is not a person on earth who is not calmed by the presence of a breast. I was suddenly able to make sense of my chronic desire to look down women’s shirts or seek out strippers and stare at their breasts. I am seeking repose or release from the chronic anxiety that seems to be upon me day and night. I am looking for breasts to calm my frazzled nerves in the same way that a person who is about to drown searches for a life preserver.

As I watched the morning sun come up over the tall looming redwood trees I realized that I not only had an erection but that a non- profit organization like Breasts Not Bombs could possibly save the world. It was the German Psychiatrists Wilhelm Reich who said that “if man could just have a daily orgasm or be allowed to fondle a naked woman everyday, then all the wars and terrible violence of humanity could be avoided.” Men would not want to fight- because the release of sexual energy would allow them to feel rested and calm. Myself, being a daily orgasamer, happen to agree with Reich’s theory. I am a very non-violent man who has yet to throw a punch or harm another fellow human being in any direct way. I have always known that this is mainly because I am always thinking of naked woman and masturbating. If Breasts Not Bombs could stimulate this same feeling in the majority of men on earth- than maybe I could find a way to avert the constant violence on earth that I so strongly stand against. This could win me the one thing I have always longed for- a Noble Peace Prize.

I would have to find thousands of woman who would be willing to not only walk around with out shirt and bra but also be willing to allow men to fondle their breasts. These woman would have to be connected with their maternal instincts and realize that what they where doing was sacrificing their own sense of feministic decency for the larger good of humanity. By allowing men to play with their breasts- they would be effectively changing if not saving the world. As I returned to my home ready to begin the work of establishing my own non-profit, I grew a bit disconcerted with my ability to gather so many women who were willing to sacrifice themselves for a larger good. In our contemporary American war culture, where breasts have become taboo and hidden from view like the Dead Sea Scrolls- how the hell would I find a thousand women willing to bare their boobs and save the world? I have always believed that where there is a will there is a way….and the rest of my day was spent creating a plan to make my will a reality.

It’s like jumping over time. Tricking space. Being lost is the most immediate way to be free. This is why I try doing it as much as possible in this modern world where every one pretends to be found. I prefer not knowing where I am. Not knowing which way to go. Even when I know where I am I pretend that I am without a clue. Being lost for me is a form of salvation- a way to escape from the narrow confines of day to day life. A way to turn things on mute. When I am lost I am stuck in wonder. There is no wrong that I can do and I am free from all the critical judgements of my mind. Being lost for me is a form of therapy, a way to understand myself outside of time and space.

Certain individuals always say to me that they are worried because I always seem lost. “How are you going to maintain a normal job or have a family if you are always lost?” I am often asked. My employers look at me with concern because they are unsure where they can find me. It fills people with trepidation when you spend a lot of time being lost. They feel like they don’t know where to find you and this jeopardizes their own sense of safety and control. I am often faced with questions in the form of condemnations about being lost. “You are so forgetful you know?” or “When are you going to take responsibility?” I often times know that these judgements being expressed towards me are the pontifications of someone feeling out of control. But my intention in getting lost is not to make people anxious or worried, rather I get lost because it is fun.

It is hard to have fun when you get older. Fun can be worn out just like a pair of jeans. We need to drink more or eat more in order to feel the same pleasure that we did when younger. But one form of fun that has never thawed out for me is forgetting where I am. I have been doing it for years and the older I get the better I become at being lost. I relate this kind of fun to the pleasure an enlightened person must have being enlightened. When I am at lost I am free from the responsibilities and familiarities that dictate the course of my normal life. I no longer have to pretend and I enjoy the knowledge that no one around me knows who I am. Nothing seems to matter to me when I am lost other than the moment which I occupy with complete mindfulness. It is almost as if being lost for me is a meditation. An opportunity to set my perpetual thoughts aside and remain focused on the knowledge that I am finally free.

My sister is a 37 year old slut. I have not always been aware of this- but recently it has caught my attention that this is the case. On several occasions I have spent time with her in parks on nice sunny afternoons. We lay out a blanket and I am always surprised because she suddenly takes of her clothes and wears a very skimpy bikini. I am surprised because we usually spend time together in popular parks where there are men all around playing bongo drums, doing yoga, playing frisbee or just hanging out “surfing for chicks.” I myself have always been a bit uncomfortable hanging out with my sister when she is wearing a bikini. I see more of her than I want to and I am also unsettled by the amount of men that become fixated upon her bare body. Often, I would just chalk her modesty up to a desire to receive a tan- but lately I have realized that there is more behind her bikini wearing motivations.

My sister is a medical doctor and spends most of her weekdays dressed in nice suits usually covered by the traditional white Doctors smock. She is an attractive lady with long brown hair and golden brown gypsy skin. She is well educated and has a tendency to drink and smoke a little too much. She lives alone in a lavish city apartment with her cat who is on heart medication. My sister is often going on dates with strange men who she meets on-line and in the park.

My sister recently told me that she has met at least twenty men in the park that we like to go to, over the past two months. When I asked her how many of these men she has gone on dates with she told me “all.” I was shocked since I have always considered my sister a rather conservative sexually repressed professional. When she told me that her idea of a date was getting a bottle of red wine, some weed and staying in and watching a movie- I knew something strange was going on. My sister was seducing these men and then having her way with them in the privacy of her own bed.

I do not know why I am surprised that my sister is a slut. I come from a family that has a long lineage of sexual perversion. My grandparents and parents were swingers. I myself was addicted to prostitution and pornography for many years. Now that I am married my sex life has become more non existent but I am able to maintain some sexual relevance by a masturbation habit that never gets boring. After all the afternoons spent sitting with my sister in parks it never occurred to me that she to was acting out her deep and genetically acquired sexual perversions. I was naive not to see the motivations behind her bikini and body oil. I was also naive to distrust my own feelings of discomfort that I felt when ever she was dressed in a bikini.

I recently found out that on warm sunny days my sister goes to a particular park in the city and sits in the sun wearing nothing but her bikini. She smokes cigarettes and does all the paper work that has accumulated from her day job as a doctor. Her office has become the park and she is always trying to get me to meet her there when I am done with work. But recently I have been staying away. I do not want to face my discomfort around the fact that my sister is wearing a bikini because she is trying to hook and reel in men like a fisherman awaiting some stupid fish to bite the bait. I do not want to face the fact that my sister is a slut and possibly using me as bait to capture the jealous attention of other men. After all I am an usually handsome man and the two of us together have often been mistaken for super models. So I am staying away from her and the park for a time. I am trying to make due with this knew realization about my sister and find out if there is some sort of way that I can convince her that she is traveling down to wrong path.

I am a serious lover of vagina. Not in a misogynistic way but rather I adore vagina. At times it is almost as if vagina and I are kindred spirits. Lately I have been contemplating where this odd bond comes from. I have been trying to re-live my mothers relationship with her own vagina and my fathers relations with my mother’s vagina. Nothing imparticular stands out in my mind other than a few muddied memories.

When I was born my mother told me that my head was stuck between the lips of her vagina and the outside world. It took hours to get me through what by then had become and enlarged mass of pulsating tissue. Doctors had to work diligently to get me through my mother’s vagina and then said that I demonstrated unusual resistance for an infant my size. My birth was not traumatic but rather more like the experience of getting out of bed when you desperately want to stay in it. All day long you long for a time later that day when you can return.

My mother always used to laugh about how when she would try and breast feed me I would immediately head down into the vicinity of her crotch. I did not want to be kept away and when she would return my suckling head to her breast I would break out in terrible cries. When my mom would rest with me in a chair or on the couch I would always keep my head planted in between her legs. “It is as if you wanted to go back in to where you had come from,” my mother often tells me when I talk to her about my love of vagina’s.

My therapist helped me to see how vagina’s for me are a symbol of returning to the womb. The womb for me was a pleasant place, a place of warmth and safety. The world for me is a place of fear and chronic anxiety intermixed with moments of over whelming beauty and heart felt emotion. At times it all feels like to much….and it is during these times that I most heavily long for vagina.

I don’t necessarily like the taste of vagina nor do I enjoy the act of licking around in it with my tongue. Most of the time when I am in close proximity to my wife’s vagina I will delicately use my fingers to gently pull apart the flesh and see if there is a big enough hole there for me to slip back in through. The hole is seldom big enough to fit anything larger than a bottle cork into so I usually end up resting my head upon the warmth of her naked crotch.

I often stare at other women’s vagina’s before I even look at them in the face. This is a habit that I believe I developed at birth. I am not looking at the vagina like a pervert would but rather every time I look at the area where the vagina is located I am filled with a warmth that I am at a loss to describe. It is like a feeling that one gets when they are returning home after years and years away. Sometimes I will sit on a park bench that is close to my home and spend the entire day watching vagina’s pass by. I am a 36 year old married man and I am still searching around in the bush.

When I was a younger man my friends and I all referred to vagina’s as “bush.” “Hey man did you get some bush last night?” we would always ask one another and of course the answers were almost always “well, almost but she didn’t want to put out.” I on the other hand was fortunate. One of my first girlfriends in high school loved to let me travel around in her bush. Her name was Emily Jolly and by the time she was 15 she had already been around the bases a few times. One of my friends informed me that she had also hit several grand slams (orgies).

By the age of 15 I was already obsessed with vagina’s. My school locker was filled with cut out photographs of vagina’s. When Emily Jolly told me that I could “mess with her bush” when we had not even kissed yet I became overwhelmed with a mixture of excitement and terrible anxiety. After a few weeks of waiting to get the nerve up I finally asked her if I could “see it.” We snuck behind the gym and there she lifted up her skirt and showed me what was the most magnificent thing I had ever seen. Her vagina was huge, and was covered with so much hair and vibrant pulsation that I knew it was the place I was supposed to be.

I tried several times to fit my head into her vagina but I was never able to climb all the way in. Emily loved it when I would fit my hole fist inside her- but when I proceeded to try and fit the top of my head into her she said it hurt to much. I grew jealous of my fist and often asked it what it was like inside. After the fourth or fifth time of trying to get inside her I gave up and slowly there after our relationship began to fall apart.

My wife has always been generous with my pre-occupation with vagina. She allows no jealousy to creep in when I look at other women’s vagina’s and she lets me rest my head upon her vagina for as long as I need. Some days my desire to be inside the vagina is so strong that I will cry about never ever again being able to get back in again. My tears lubricate my wife’s vagina as I lament over and over that I feel like a man who has been cruelly locked out from the very place he belongs. My wife pats my head and tells me to not worry, that every thing will be all right, but I know the truth- I know that I am a stranger in this land.

“I am worried that you are not having enough fun in your life,” my wife said to me. “I have had too much fun in my life and now I am having fun not having fun,” I replied. She looked at me like one does when they know that you are lying to yourself. I considered what I had just said to her and then realized that I did not know what I was talking about. “When you go out and have fun, it sustains you into the future. It makes your life a little easier to handle.. a little more enjoyable to live,” my wife said. ” I have fun staying home and reading, writing or watching a movie. I don’t feel the need to go out to have fun,” I replied- but then I thought about what I said. “Am I really having fun staying in all the time, do I really even remember what it feels like to have fun?” I asked myself. “I think you are afraid of fun,” my wife said as she kissed me and left for another evening out with friends that I once again elected myself out of.

I have been staying home a lot lately. My wife goes out and has fun quite often but I stay in. I make up excuses and tell my wife that I have work to do. In reality I am avoiding the world. All through out my twenties and early thirties I indulged in the world. I went out night after night and indulged in what people like to commonly refer to as fun. I socialized, drank too much, smoked weed and went off on insane adventures that lasted until the sun came up. When I turned thirty I decided that friends were a waste of time and I began having fun alone. I spent my weekends and a few weekday evenings and afternoons in various strip clubs where I knew no one and no one knew me. In the darkness I somehow felt complete in my solitude and as I watched naked women dance for me upon a red lit stage- I was the happiest man alive. I would end my evening in massage parlors where I received shiatsu and a hand job- and then return home early the next morning and sleep until noon. This was my idea of fun.

Now that I am married I have lost touch with a feeling of fun. No longer can I hang out in strip clubs and massage parlors without ending up with a twelve pound suitcase filled with guilt and shame. It ain’t worth it. I hate keeping secrets from my wife so I have broken up with my idea of fun. I have few friends that I enjoy spending time with and solitude has become my favorite form of company. Last weekend when my wife and I went on a dinner date with another couple I felt like a man who was wasting his time. I drank too much so that I could force my self to have fun. All I really wanted was to be at home swimming around in the pages of a book.

“You are becoming reclusive and a curmudgeon,” my wife told me the other day. “Why because I don’t like to have fun?” I asked. “You don’t like to do anything,” she said. “That is not true!” I protested quickly. ” “Though doth protest too much…when was the last time that you had fun?” she asked. “I had fun last night being at home alone watching a movie and doing some writing,” I said. But then I thought about what I said. Was I really having fun being home night after night watching movies, writing and reading? Or has doing these things become my idea of fun because I have forgotten how to have fun? Have I given up on fun because I know that it only lasts for a brief period of time before you are right back where you were before that fun began? Fun drops you off right where it left you- stuck in the middle of your life (and usually with a hang over). Is this why I have given up on fun?

And then I realized that my idea of fun was no fun at all. I have become discouraged with fun, I have lost hope in fun. After decades of having fun I am still stuck in the realities of my life. I got tired of the fun ending. No matter how much fun I had the night before my life was still awaiting me in the morning. By refusing fun, I have learned how to stay present in my life. This way I am not disappointed, I am not let down. Fun for me is kind of like a lover who is always making you feel bad in the end. After years and years of this maddening relationship I have broken the cycle. I have left fun for the reality of my life. I have left fun for quiet evenings at home- a relationship that I feel is more dependable and certainly more consistent. “That’s my idea of fun,” I told my wife as I tried to describe why I was no longer interested in having fun.  “Well do not forget,” my wife replied, “tomorrow night is your sister’s birthday and we are going to go out illuminate ourselves out from this funk you live in and have some damn fun!”

I know that there are chains. I can feel them and here them and at times I can taste them. There seems not another living soul but me who can notice these chains- but I will not allow their limited perception to make me mad. I know that the chains are there and not a single soul can change my mind. No spiritual guru or psychotherapist can convince me that there is no shackle wrapped around my ankles and no chains dragging behind my feet. They are there and this is an unarguable fact- but what can be done about this “condition” is certainly up for discussion.

I only confess this “condition” of mine because I have notice that I share it with my fellow human kind. Every place I go and upon every one I know I can see these shackles and chains dangling from wrists, ankles and sometimes neck. The individual who is wrapped in chains seems seldom to realize that they are walking around with a great weight. Rather they stay distracted by preoccupations that seems to anesthetize any feeling of physical bondage. Is not this the role of modern technological gadgets (television, ipods, computers, cars and on and on), to make us numb? I am uncertain what is to be done, because when I talk about my chains with colleagues over coffee- I receive nothing but a blank stare that seems to suggest that I may be crazy. The more time I spend at work or thinking about the world- the more I can feel the weight of my chains.

I am not the first to mention this “condition.” The French religious philosopher Pascal did so as well. He wrote “we live between the weight of shackles, seldom aware that they restrict not only our physical bodies but also our spiritual aspirations.” I have visited with many spiritual counselors and healers in regards to my “condition.” I have been counseled by the best and the answer is always the same. “Yes, we live in chains- but it is the physical body which is contained. We can choose to be free in our thought by not getting attached to anything, by remaining free from thought.” How can I not think? This is the question that I always ask. I love thinking and trying to understand the nature of existence is what I do for a living (unpaid). I have worked hard to develop the quality of thoughts that I have- even if they often cause me a great deal of suffering. I have refined my thoughts by reading and writing religiously. Thought is the one great enjoyment that I indulge in every day. How I am supposed to live without thoughts when thought is the one thing that makes me feel civilized?

“Do not attach to your thoughts. Do not identify with your thoughts- just let them pass away into the universe. Everything is impermanent…even your shackles and chains,” one spiritual guru told me when I went out to his farm for an hour session. I spent over a hundred dollars to be counselled in how to break free from my thoughts. “It is your thought that creates the chains and it is your thoughts that can set you free,” were his final words to me. Granted, when I left the farm I felt lighter- less inconvenienced by my chains. I was out of the city, in nature and for the first time in a while I felt as if I could breathe. I was confused by what I was told by the spiritual guru- but I ascertained a glimmer of hope that I could be free. The moment I walked through the front door of my home and saw a credit card bill, phone bill, and insurance bill awaiting me upon my table- the great weight returned. I felt the chains slowly wrapping themselves around my wrists and ankles like a serpent. They worked their way up towards my neck and threatened to cut off my oxygen. As I walked towards the bathroom I kept on telling myself “do not think about it, do not think!!”- but my attempts were futile because the loud sound of the chains dragging along on the hardwood hallway floor convinced me that they are real.

I’ll be honest- my birthday sucked. It was not anything in particular that took place but rather an over all mood. Their was languor or torpor in the air- the kind of feeling that you get when you are in the room with a group of people that you would rather not be around. Even though my entire family gathered together, I felt under appreciated, un- loved, uncomfortable and annoyed. My family is a group of people who suffer deeply. My 97 year old grandfather drank a good amount of red wine and kept telling me that no matter how “crummy” my father was- he loved me. My father tried to smile as he stuck expensive pasta in his mouth but I could see through that smile as if I was staring through glass. He does not like me, nor does he care for my wife- but he gave me $500.00 for my birthday. It is as if he is saying “go buy your self something nice so that I don’t have to feel bad.” He buys off most things in his life- including his son.

All through dinner I felt tense and suffered from chest pain. I dropped my pizza in my lap and drank much to much red wine. My mother kept making sure that my wife was going to take me home and put me to bed. I swore that I was not drunk and that I would go home and do meditation to recover from my birthday, which was filled with a pain so deep that I feel like I could scream. My mother and my wife did the best they can to smile and look appeased but no body talked to me about my life but rather it seemed as if we were all pretending that we live in a pretty world where appearance counts for every thing.

I do not know what I am going to do. If I could explain with words the feelings that I have within me I would have mastered the art of writing. But I am no master. On the outside the birthday was beautiful. Wine and cheese at my house with the family before dinner. My grandparents, parents, sister and wife all present. Then off to the restaurant for a six o’clock reservation where I met friends who would join us for a beautiful feast. We are alive and this is what matters most- I kept telling myself- but deep down I felt like I was stuck in the birthday from hell. Like I was on a ride that no body wanted to be on. I stuffed my face to take away my sorrow but I tried my hardest to smile, say cheers with every sip of wine and make sure the entire gathering was enjoying their time. Now I am home where I will now take a shower in my tears.

I am glad to see that 43 living human being visited my blog today. Even though the biggest blogs have hundreds of thousands of visitors a day I am content in knowing that a few, a select few are reading what some consider to be the writings of a mad man. It is not often that I am told this but it is less often that I am told I am sane. It is my belief that I oscillate between sanity and insanity. My faith is entirely constructed upon the meanings which can be extracted from this strange nether world in which I reside. I have faith that over time, maybe many many years- others will come to my blog in search of a space that is beyond common sense or rationality. My convictions tell me that I am no fool, no ordinary mortal- and that what I have to say may change the minds of more than a select conservative few. Maybe I am intoxicated by too strong a belief in the words (rhetoric) that I write, but I know that some day I may be seen by the many as one of the sanest, more frequently read and studied bloggers on planet earth (i hope).

Since I have been blogging for the past six months I have noticed that something very strange has happened to my sex life. It has vanished. Prior to blogging I was certainly not blessed with a prolific sex life- but it was alive. I was able to recall what sex felt like and I never went more than a week without some kind of sexual encounter. I was interested in sex and sought it out almost on a daily basis. I thought about it and imagined various pornographic scenarios in the back stages of my mind. It would be fair to say that I was a rather normal guy who suffered the same affliction as most other men- I was obsessed with sex. But since I began blogging, something has happened. My lust has dissipated like mist in the early afternoon. My sex life has vanished and there is no trace of it to be found.

I have done some research on this ailment that I have been suffering from and what I have found has not been encouraging. Spending long hours blogging can induce what is referred to as Mortotonia, which is a depletion of the sexual hormones in the brain. Also another interesting bit of information that I have run up against time and time again is that blogging can make an individual anti-social and introverted, which has a tendency to depress ones over all sexual drive. All of this makes sense to me but I still can’t understand why I have absolutely no interest in sex. I used to love pornography and now I am repulsed by it. Semen which never bothered me before is now as disgusting to me as  chronic eczema. I am so uninterested in women that my wife is beginning to wonder if I may be gay.

I have spent the past few weeks trying to tell my wife that my lack of interest in sex is nothing personal against her. Her concern about the possibility that I am gay is as ridiculous as her feeling that I am no longer attracted to her. “You are a beautiful woman, whom I am terribly in love with,” I tell her over and over but the minute I reject her attempts to make love to me she bursts out in tears and lamentations. How is it that I am to explain that the reason for my lack of sex drive is because of my habitual blogging habits? Blogging has destroyed my sexual appetites but she would never believe this, she would only think that I have lost what little sense I have left. But the truth is that blogging has destroyed my sexual interests. It has reduced my sensual experience down to the feeling of the key board against my finger tips. The only way I seem to feel aroused any more is when I receive comments for the posts that I have written or when my blog stats display that more than a hundred people have viewed my writings that day. My whole life in fact has been reshaped by my need to blog. Various friendships I once had have diminished and I am no longer interested in the social engagements that were once such fun for me. Sometimes I wonder if my wife was not far from the truth when she yelled at me the other day that “I have become as lifeless as a blog.” I have been thinking about this lately and I wonder if it could be true?

I finally figured out the answer to the question, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” I have been told that this question stems from an ancient Zen Koan and has been contemplated for centuries. No one as of yet has discovered the appropriate answer and this includes millions of monks who have been sitting in meditation for hours a day doing nothing but trying to imagine what the sound could be. This question has been researched, studied and investigated until all possible answers have been exhausted. And I, an ordinary mortal who is stuck in between the heavy suitcases of an ordinary existence has happened upon the answer. Like a disorganized deck of cards- fate has a funny way of orchestrating itself into a steady rhythm. Why things are the way they are- I am the last to be able to give a logical explanation. All that I know is that I am a tired man who is still searching for his dreams in a rented apartment which is cold and filled with half read underlined books. Answers seldom come my way but when they do I want to share them with the world. “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” a homeless man said to me today hoping to seduce coins from my shallow pockets. “Who cares,” I said as I cynically made my way past him with a stare of blank disregard. “Who cares,” “who cares?” I repeated to myself as if I had just discovered an ancient riddle. I stopped in my tracks  and turned with a smile of discovery upon my face to listen to the homeless man who was shouting over and over…” you got the answer, you got the mother fucking answer!!!”

The difficult thing about being a Storyteller is finding the time to write. In our post industrial technocratic society man, woman and child are subjected to a fate similar to the wrath of God against Adam and Eve. We must work by the sweat of our brow, labor away all of our vital energy so that we can afford to maintain a semblance of dignity and pride. It is an unusual condition to be wedged between because most have become so habituated to this way of being (working) that they see no alternative. They have learned to love the hand that enslaves them and decry a life without hard work ( a classic case of conditioning). After all we know that the majority of hard workers are working hard only so that they do not have to be left with the time to take a deep look into themselves. They find their identity within their work because what is deep within them is devoid of substance. This is a catch 22 situation. You work hard and you loose your self but without hard work you loose your house. This is the great modern modern dilema- how to find the time to live your life.

Since, I have been working full time as a Teacher I have found little time to write. I long for the days when I posted upon my blog every day and read with great anticipation the comments that followed in return. I was telling my stories and people around the world were responding to what was told. As a Storyteller who has been burdened with the naging desire to write, tell stories and be heard (psychologists tell me this is because my parents did not listen or pay attention to me)- the outlet of a blog has been heaven sent. But now because of the curse of “working by the sweat of our brow”, I have had to labor away all of the hours of my day and night educating young minds about how to avoid getting stuck in this consuming rat race. We talk about ways to make a fortune before the age of twenty so that they can buy an island and live far away from this synthetic life-denying culture that us humanoids have created. We find critical solutions for problems of “work-addiction” and plan strategies for ways that I can escape from this society and join a race of people who live more in harmony with life rather than the preoccupation of working.

You may wonder how this has anything to do with being a Storyteller, and I would respond that it has everything to do with being a Storyteller. In societies that are consumed with progress and work the first species to become exiled our expendable are the Storytellers. The workers or citizens of these corporate republics do not want to be reminded of their servitude, their complete dependency upon forces outside of themselves. This is why Plato exiled poets from his Republic. “The poets will allow the people to see the many ways that the established government must manipulate the citizens into the cave and away from the light of humanity,” he said. This is what the Storyteller does- he/she makes people more human.

But I no longer have the time to write or spin stories in my head. I have been drinking more and sleeping less. All of my usual creative outlets have been plugged up by work. Time seems to have shortened. By the time I am ready to read and write my eyes refuse to remain open and willing to follow the words which exhaustion has caused me to read and write backwards. This is the world that I have found myself within, and yes it is the very dynamic that seeks to exile the Storyteller from the very body it resides within. Sometimes late at night when I am lying in bed, I can feel my body shaking and becoming tense. I grow restless and have difficulty staying still. It takes me hours to fall asleep and I know that these systemic sensations are the result of my inner Storyteller trying to escape from my body so that it can go some place else where it will have the peace, light and time to tell its many tales.

The End.

I have been down so long that it looks like up for me. In fact, I have decided only to look up from here on out. I am in no way deciding to become an optimist but I am making the choice to focus upon the salmon rather than the bones. After all- looking down only cultivates a feeling of impending doom that will nag at your bones until they are broken.

The myth about looking up is that all things become filled with sun and shine. This is untrue. The sun and shine are there but so is the universe and the darkness beyond. You see, this is the job of the prophet- to see beyond the sun and sky and into the depths of eternity. This is not an easy undertaking for a man such as myself who is easily blinded by the sun and preoccupied with a fear of the dark. But it is within this darkness, which sits just beyond the sun, that I look into every day with a full commitment towards revealing a truth that most ordinary mortals are to blind to see.

You may not need a prophet to inform you that these are troubling times in which we now exist. So troubling in fact that Therapists and Psychiatrists are being trained on how to deal with a very new form of anxiety called “eco-anxiety.” This is a form of anxiety that has become more chronic in the past few years with the rising information about global warming, toxins in food, toxins in the home and toxins in the air. I admit that I to may be suffering from this avant-garde form of anxiety. My life has been made more nervous by all the daily decisions that I have had to make in order to remain healthy. Even though I am a prophet I still have to be careful that my meat does not contain antibiotics and hormones, that the water I drink has been filtered, that I eat only organic food so as to reduce my exposure to pesticides and that the environment in which I live does not contain toxic materials. Granted, I am rarely able to do these things consistently so I end up with chronic anxiety because I know that the world in which I am living is making myself and everyone else sick.

Maybe this is the most difficult aspect of being a prophet- “the knowing.” Knowing so much that you always have to be on-guard about what you eat, drink, wear and breathe. In prophet circles this is referred to the as the curse of “knowing too much.” Many wonderfully gifted prophets that I have associated with have lost their mystical/metaphysical talents because they have “known to much” and as a result developed panic attacks. In order to cope with the oppressive burden of panic disorder they have elected to go onto medication and I believe it is common knowledge that all modern day psycho pharmaceutical drugs destroy the prophet’s ability to prophesize. The prophecy is enough to burden any ordinary prophet and the immense amount of personal spiritual work that I have to do in order to bare the weight of prophecy swallows up most of my time.

There was a time when I was a social creature. I spent a lot of time hanging out in bars and spending my entire days sitting in cafes. I had several girlfriends at a time and I enjoyed several sexual rendezvous a day. Now that I am older and a little less confused I rarely leave the house during the evening and during the day I am preoccupied with the work of prophecy. I have very few friends, because when I get around them I only feel aggravated by their inability to “see past the sun.” Or maybe it would be more correct to say that I am jealous of them, envious because they have no idea what is going on. They just don’t know.

I, on the other hand, know all to well. I connect the dots between earthquakes in China, floods in Burma, tsunamis in Indonesia, floods in New Orleans, rising food, living and gas prices, widening gaps between rich and poor, toxic air and food, wars, genocides and chronic battles for domination and power all happening in different parts of the world at the same time. This knowledge makes me wonder if I may not be a prime candidate to be diagnosed as suffering from “eco-anxiety.” After all I do wear a respirator when I ride my bike (to protect against gas fumes), I take two-dozen supplements a day and drink green algae drinks all through out the afternoon so as to stimulate detoxification of my vessel (body). Some think that I am over reacting and some call me paranoid- but because I am a prophet I know that they think this because “they just don’t know.” Some day soon I think I will let the whole world know what I see when I look up. Then we will all be able to be anxious together and I wont have to feel so alone.

Oh, the pervert in room #8. How I miss him. Where did he go? It seems that he has wondered off and can not be found. The last that I saw of the perverted deviant he was hiding under mattresses and watching prostitutes work their magic with their clients. He would lye there with his pants down while unknowingly above him men paid women to manifest their wildest fantasies in the privacy of a transient motel room. He was without fear and would put him self in the position of greatest risk to fulfill his own personal perversions. I have been looking for the pervert in room #8 for weeks but have not been able to find him. I so admire his tenacity, courage and acumen with regards to finding that which he desires most. I think that we can all agree that most of us repress our most powerful desires- but the pervert in room #8 was one of the only men that I have ever met who actually sets sail in search of lust. I admire him for this, and it is from him that I have learned some of the greatest lessons about life, living and hiding under mattresses while hookers are hard at work (to learn more please see the story “The Pervert In Room #8). Please let me know if you know where to find him.

( I am drunk) Do you know what it is like to be riddle with anxiety- stuck in a darkened room? You can see outwards but within it is blurry and riddled with fear. Smoke lingers between the palpitating curtains and there are sounds of restricted breathing and muted yells. Flowers glow in the corners; windowns are covered with exhaust and I am neither here nor there wondering how and when I am going to get out. On the outside I look calm and ready to suggest a walk or a drink, but on the inside I am clamoring, stricken with a constricted terror. The reality of the situation is as difficult to perceive as truth or energy- but it is as tactile as salt and water. I fall away into a blue state where the room becomes dull- unequal to any other experience. What do things like reputation and money matter when you are upon the edge of panic? Superficiality is stripped away like rust when confronted with your mortality. I smoke a cigarette and contemplate driving down the freeway or stopping off in a lonely topless bar. Until then, I am stuck here and trying to figure out what to do with all this madness.

I used to love sitting alone in a chair and reading a good book. Nothing brought me greater pleasure. I would read a novel a day while enjoying the background sounds of birds chirping and cats meowing. Nothing was as effective in diminishing my stress and anxiety as a good book. No matter how bad the conditions of the world or my life- the printed words on a page could lift me out from my psychological squalor and re-plant me in a space of wonderment. I look back upon these times with utter envy. I even become emotionally enraged towards the man I was in my twenties. I am not only jealous of the large chunks of time that he had to drift of into the pursuit of knowledge but I am furious that it has all gone away.

Now I cannot read a book without having to get up and do something after twenty minutes. I become aggravated, nervous and I am distracted by these demons that seem to be hovering over me and disrupting my concentration. My thoughts begin to race and I struggle to stay focused upon what ever story or non-fiction work I have chosen to read. But no sooner than I can get past a few pages is there the loud voices of little demons that whisper scary things into my ears and poke sharp objects into my chest making me fearful what might happen next. I try to tune them out and push them away with positive visualizations or a smile- but they are ferocious and do not easily relent.

I know nothing good lasts forever, but there are still so many books left that I want to read. I want to return to that time when I could read peacefully for hours, day upon day- without the little brats whispering in my ear: “is your heart beating irregularly?” or “shouldn’t you be doing something more constructive.” Some times these little demons keep shouting things at me like “watch out, watch out- your head might explode!!” or “run, run, run for your life…death is coming, ha ha!!” My own inner monologue is not loud enough to silence these intruding voices and rather than continuing to read I give up and go do something else.

I have not been able to read a book from front to back for months. These little intrusive demons are getting the best of me. They also sneak into my head when I go for walks and drive my car. If I am not constantly reciting a mantra in my mind or singing a song- they will sneak into my silence and cause me great anxiety and grief. The little demons are wearing me down, forcing me to drink more wine and taking me away from the one thing that has always been of great importance to me- my intellectual life.

Without my practice of diligent daily reading my intellectual acumen has become as watered down as a cheap cocktail. I have not been able to think or write upon the great themes of philosophical dialectics or cultural theory like I had once planned upon doing. I have not been able to write great novels that compare with the best of works by Tolstoy, Kafka or Bernhard. I have not been able to go into my career as an honorable college professor who specializes in Ontology and Samuel Beckett. Rather- to defend myself against these little demons and attempt to save my own life I have had to go towards the New Age. I have had to practice meditation, do Yoga, recite mantras and start wearing beads and stones to defend myself against negative energy. I have had to seek out healers and been told by many that I must get out of my mind and start to become more grounded in my body. The very thing that I put so much work into cultivating has become my demise. My intellect has become the very portal from which these demons can access my nervous brain causing me such scary afflictions as to make me consider taking medication. These voices and disruptions get louder and louder every day- if it continues I may send out invitations to my own beheading.

photograph by Keith Purdy.

I am obsessed with doors. I have walked for miles upon many miles and spent years upon years- staring at nothing but doors. The way doors are crafted and the permission that they grant the viewer to imagine what may lay behind, give me an animated sense of being alive. I love the way doors swing and hang. When I am watching a door swing or sway upon its hinges it is as if I am watching a beautiful women seductively pull back articles of clothing that slightly reveal glimpses of forbidden flesh. A potential is revealed and then hidden.

I am a man who is drawn to doors like sailors can be drawn to sea. I am in love with the concept of a door. The way doors separate realities and tempt the mind into a certain curiosity. Doors alter moods, depending upon whether they are opened or closed. They hold the key to the riddle of the universe- all we have to do to is walk on through to the other side.

My obsession with doors grew out of a brief relationship with a woman whose father was a door maker. He specialized in making doors from Southern Spain. The doors had a Moorish quality to them and were always carved with seven sided stars and Arabic writings. The doors were large enough to allow elephants to walk into or out of a room. Aliza’s father was also a man obsessed with doors and after he was long asleep (his wife and he slept on a mattress which was set upon two 18th century doors that he brought back from Barcelona) we would sneak into his door studio and make love on the various kinds of metal door carving equipment. I remember the cold of the equipment against my bare butt as I lifted her upon my legs and made love to her in the dark. Aliza taught me all that she new about doors. We would spend days doing nothing but walking around the tree lined neighborhood in which she lived examining the various kinds of doors that separated families, friends and strangers from “experiences, perceptions and realities.” When Aliza left me for another woman the last words she said to me upon slamming a door in my face was “my doors are shut.”

I managed to steal an antiquated book about doors from Aliza’s father before leaving the door studio for the final time. My heart was in pieces and I had tears in my eyes as I ran off with the book under my jacket. I read the book at least a dozen times and got over my broken heart by traveling around America on a bike and examining, studying and documenting various forms of doors. I took photographs and documented over 10,000 doors in sixteen journals that I tugged around with me in a heavy suitcase. I stayed in Philadelphia for months amazed by the various kinds of colonial doors that seemed to exist in excess. I worked in a strip club during the evenings and documented doors during the day. In one form or another I have been doing this same thing for the past fifteen years. I have over two hundred door documentation journals. I hope that one day not to soon my obituary mentions that I am one of the most important Doormen of my generation.

A Doorman is not the standard and accepted definition of a man who opens doors for you. Rather the term Doorman goes back at least 2100 years to antiquity where a minor Greek Historian by the name of Herodumus wrote the first collection of writings on the theme of doors. He defined a Doorman as the connoisseur of the study of doors whose fascination with the transcendental architecture of doors burn like a fever in his soul. He spoke of the Doorman as one who searches with unrelenting fervor to find the secret or “alternate reality” that can only be revealed by passing through a door. This is the alternate reality that Aldous Huxley wrote about in The Doors Of Perception- another book that has deeply inspired my search. Huxley spoke of doors as a living form of matter that have the absolute power of separating and joining one reality to another. It was Jim Morrison who was the twentieth century’s greatest devotees of Herodumus’s manifesto of the Doorman. He took Huxley’s challenge to break on through and started a band that was dedicated to investigating the mystical apparatus that we refer to as a door. Morrison made doors spiritual and sexual. The textures and structure of doors became more detailed in American society (1969) after The Doors became on of Americas greatest rock bands. It is to Jim Morrison that I will dedicate the great twenty first century book that I plan to write about doors. It will be called The Doors.

For now I am swamped with perpetual thoughts of doors. I see them when I sleep and I am always trying to find ways that I can sneak behind them. No matter if it is a Cabbala door, a Mulligan door, a Moorish door, a Rotunda door, a Franklin Colonial door or a simple 4 by 4 American Suburban door- I am always wanting to break on through to the other side. I am like a Scientist who wants to prove the existence of God by finding the one door that reveals all of his/her or its equations. Like the Door maker whose daughter I long ago copulated with- I am convinced that all the riddles that confuse and confound the human species can be immediately unlocked by the transcendental power of a door.