Head In The Clouds

The phrase “man with head in the clouds” refers to someone who lacks practicality and is often lost in their own thoughts or imagination. Fair enough, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Creative minds are often what lead to innovation and progress in various fields. But too much time in the proverbial clouds can lead to neglecting important responsibilities or opportunities, leaving you with not much security to hold on to. It’s a precarious existence.

A man with his head in the clouds is someone who is constantly daydreaming and visualizing different possibilities. He wants out of the present moment by living in imaginary spaces. He may have a great imagination and come up with amazing ideas, but without taking action on them, the ideas remain just that: ideas that fade away like clouds. This is an unfortunate aspect of being a man with his head in the clouds.

Furthermore, a man with his head in the clouds may be seen as unrealistic or impractical by others. They may view him as ungrounded, lazy, irresponsible or too idealistic. This can lead to him being dismissed or overlooked, especially in more structured or traditional environments where practicality and responsibility are valued over creativity. This is why a man with his head in the clouds is often drowning in creditors and irrelevance.

Having one’s head in the clouds can also be seen as a virtue. It is these kinds of people who dream up new inventions, create art, solve problems and make big changes in the world. They see things from a different perspective, generating new ways of thinking and problem-solving. They may also be more attuned to their intuition and emotions, which can lead to greater empathy and understanding of others. Unfortunately, it can also lead to greater levels of depression and despair while living in a society that does not value men who have their head in the clouds.

Being a man with his head in the clouds may have its downsides, but it can also be a source of inspiration and innovation. While it is important to remain grounded and practical at times, we should also value and encourage creativity and imagination. After all, without individuals who dare to have their head in the clouds, everything would just be all the same.

How To Escape A Drama-Filled Society

Living in a drama-filled society can be exhausting and draining for anyone. It’s no secret that drama often causes unnecessary stress, anxiety, confusion, distraction and it can be difficult to escape. But not impossible. There are a few steps you can take to remove yourself from the morass of drama and create a more peaceful, stress-free life.

1. Identify the sources of drama:
   The first step in escaping the drama of your society is to identify its sources. It may be certain friends, family members, or co-workers who create drama. Alternatively, it could be social media or news outlets that stir up emotions and create angst. When you identify the causes of drama, it’s easier to avoid them.
2. Limit your exposure to drama:
   Now that you’ve identified the sources of drama, take steps to limit your exposure to them. For example, if you have a mentally unstable sister who constantly involves herself in your drama thus creating even more drama for yourself, you may need to distance yourself from her or set solid boundaries. Similarly, if social media causes negative emotions or triggers drama, delete the app or take a few days off.
3. Surround yourself with positivity:
   To counteract the negativity and drama of your society, focus on surrounding yourself with positive people who bring you joy and make you feel good about yourself. I realize that positive people can be superficial and dull. This may mean eliminating friends who don’t share your values and interests or making time for self-care activities that lift your mood and counteract all the soul-destroying drama.
4. Practice mindfulness and self-care:
   Mindfulness practices such as meditation and deep breathing can be helpful in reducing stress and anxiety. Self-care activities like taking a hot bath, reading a book, journaling, stretching, cleaning, listening to music, being naked with another human, hanging-out/doing nothing or going for a ponderous walk can also help reduce the impact of deadening drama on your life.
5. Focus on what you can control:
   Finally, remember that while you can’t control the drama in your society, you can control your reactions to it. You may feel like being distracted from everything but focus on the things you can control, such as how much time and energy you devote to drama, and let go of things you cannot control. By taking ownership of your own life, you’ll reduce the impact of drama and create a more peaceful and interesting existence.

Escaping the drama of society takes effort, diligence and discipline but it’s worth it to create a more fulfilling and stress-free existence. By identifying the sources of drama, limiting your exposure to them, surrounding yourself with positivity (that is not superficial or dull), practicing mindfulness and self-care, and focusing on what you can control, you can escape the drama and create a more relaxed living situation for yourself.

A Story of Desecration and Exploration

Coming sometime soon I hope.

The Terrible Reader

The pages are too long. The words spread out. The words slip out. The words move through the brain and back out into the nowhere place from which they came. The brain no longer able to retain the words that live in a book. The brain is slipping away into a kind of digitalized maze. Only tidbits of information and pictures are able to stick. A book filled with words is a marathon, which a person is too out of shape to run. The words are a threat to a person’s limp attention span. No longer capable of the longer sprints and solitudes that a book filled with words requires, The Terrible Reader reaches for her phone.

 
The Terrible Reader is no longer capable of being alone. He needs to know what is going on on-line. He needs to know what texts have come through. He needs to carry on a conversation that was begun on his phone. He needs to find new emails in his inbox. He needs to check who has checked his frequently checked Instagram and Facebook accounts. There are things to do. Likes to be given and had. Comments to be left. Photos to be seen and loved. The terrible reader has no time for a book. A book keeps him off-line. There is no excitement in these printed words.

 
The Terrible Reader can no longer sit with herself. It is too uncomfortable. Toes curl and uncurl. Nails are bitten. Fingers are picked. Hair is pulled. It is a continual struggle to keep her attention fixed. She feels restless. Anxious. Just sitting there alone with a book is no longer enough stimulation to keep her attention fixed. She tries to hold on with the book in her hand but it is almost painful. There is an antsiness that won’t go away. And when it does, she feels bored. She feels ready for sleep. The Terrible Reader is in a continual struggle between restlessness and sleep. Her attention span can’t keep up with the attention that words in a book demand. Instead she needs the digitally illuminated screen. She needs the fake light to get off. She needs the high-resolution pictures and live time conversations to feel engaged. When The Terrible Reader is on her phone toes do not curl and uncurl. Nails are not bitten. Fingers are not picked. Hair is not pulled. There is no struggle to keep her attention fixed. There is no battle between restlessness and sleep. Her attention is completely transfixed when on the phone. When on-line, her attention span is dialed in. She is immersed. Like particles of dust sucked into a vacuum machine, she is gone.

 
The Terrible Reader can read books no more. The Terrible Reader still tries to read books but most of them remain unfinished. Worlds only partially explored. These unfinished worlds pile up like dead leaves in the fall. Discarded and no longer needed, they are left to die under the weight of newer books which will also go unfinished. Unexplored. The Terrible Reader is yet to come to terms with the fact that they have become a terrible reader. They do not want to admit this painful fact to themselves so they continually try and read some more. It hurts too much to make an honest appraisal of what they have become, since humans never like to admit the truth about themselves to themselves. Every time The Terrible Reader sits down with a book their smartphone pulls at them. It won’t leave them in peace. Come to me, come to me, check me, see me, it whispers in The Terrible Reader’s ear. For the fifth time in an hour The Terrible Reader puts the book down and must reach for the smartphone. They no longer have a choice.

View at Medium.com

Leonard Cohen Died Tonight

Prince, then David Bowie and now Leonard Cohen. What a terrible year this has been for those of us deeply touched and taught by these creative visionaries.

Leonard Cohen was once a wild man. Then he became a Buddhist monk. But he was still a wild man, even when he was a Buddhist monk. I love the story of him sneaking out behind the meditation hall early one morning to drink his coffee and smoke a cigarette.

A lover of women, words, good whiskey and wine. A fine poet indeed. A man with impeccable style, in so many more ways than just how he wore his clothes. The kind of youthful charm Leonard Cohen had well into old age, was proof that a man can grow old without growing old. Every time you heard him speak you listened and learned something original and new. A real philosopher and poet he was. Not many, if any, around like him anymore.

Leonard why did you have to go? I know you were almost really old, but couldn’t you hang around a few more years? I am not quite ready to make a go of this without you in the world.

His novels, poetry and songs where doorways into imaginative landscapes and lovescapes, the likes of which a person never heard before. Without even knowing it was happening he taught you how to live and how to die. This world will no longer be the same place without him in it.

I don’t know as much about Leonard Cohen’s songs, books and poetry as I probably should. I know the basics of Leonard Cohen’s life but I can’t tell you specifics from his biography. For me Leonard Cohen was an example of how to live as a man and an artist. It is strange to me that I have the deepest reverence and respect for a man I have never met. I studied his interviews and from that I learned what I needed to know. I have his album Songs Of Love And Hate hanging on my wall, in the same way that someone would hang a cross or a picture of their hero.

I suppose this is what Leonard Cohen meant to me. He was my teacher. He was a man who spoke more eloquently about how to live life and deal with the various demons he struggled with than any other man I have heard speak. He made me feel less alone with my demons and despair. He showed me the way to deal; through solitude, meditation, occasional nights filled with wine and women, books, music and filling up journals with words, wisdom and art.

How many people become icons but continue to live in very humble conditions, on the second floor of a small home (his daughter and her family live below) in a lower economic neighborhood? He didn’t care much for more ostentatious material things. Money was not his main thing. How rare to find a human being (especially a successful one in America) who puts his art and his life before preoccupations with money, status and more materialistic things.

In today’s America, it is the poets and artists who go unseen. No one talks about them. Leonard Cohen broke through the thick cloud of obscurity and showed generations of artists and poets that they do not have to live a defeated, delegitimized and conformist life. He showed artists, poets and writers that there are alternative ways of living where you can keep your edge and remain in the poetry.

I could be wrong but I think Leonard Cohen somehow knew me. I often felt like he was talking right at me, especially when talking about isolation, loneliness, women, love and art. But I know everyone who loved him felt this way. That is what made him so great and this is what makes things feel so much more hollow and empty now that he is gone.

Thank you for everything Leonard Cohen. You were such a class act. I will continue to live the things you taught. Hallelujah.

The Man Who Grew Breasts (Overnight)

Yesterday, the majority of Americans elected Donald Trump as President of the United States. I was angry. Very angry. This morning I woke up with breasts.

These are not male breasts. They are good-sized female breasts. It is as if while I was asleep, someone came and took my male breasts and replaced them with thirty-five year old female breasts. I don’t understand how something like this could happen.

The minute I got out from bed this morning I felt a heavy weight pulling my chest towards the ground. I immediately became concerned that I was having some sort of heart issue. Maybe I was too angry yesterday, I remember thinking. But then as I was walking to the bathroom I noticed feeling like I was carrying decent sized water balloons inside of my chest. I could feel something jiggling around. I stopped in the hallway, turned on the lights, lifted up my t-shirt, looked down and noticed I had decent sized female breasts.

I couldn’t make sense of this right away. I thought maybe I was still in a dream. When I realized it was not a dream, I thought that maybe I was hallucinating. I have been meditating a lot recently and have heard that sometimes walking hallucinations can be a side effect of too much time spent in meditation. I looked at my breasts in the bathroom mirror. I touched them and that is when I realized they were real.

I don’t understand how this could happen. My wife has been Googling all morning. She is trying to figure out how a man can go to sleep with perfectly normal male breasts and then wake up with a pair of decent sized, nicely shaped, female breasts.

This must be the result of feeling too much anger yesterday. I don’t normally feel such long-lasting periods of intense anger and somehow the anger must have messed around with my hormone levels. I have read about men who are really angry suddenly losing all their hair or getting a non-viagra induced erection that does not go away. It is well known that anger messes with chemical constructs in human bodies and yesterday my anger was so strong that I was sweating throughout the entire day. My anger intensified after my father told me that he voted for Donald Trump and that he thought that Donald Trump was going to “Make America Great Again.”

I suppose it would be fair to say that my anger reached levels that if documented by a medical device could be safely called rage. But I did not yell. I did not express my rage in any way. I just let it be there as I kept myself present and aware of my breathing. I know that all emotions are just waves and because of my meditation practice I do not really identify with waves. I just notice them. But I wonder if the meditative suppression of my rage with regards to the election of Donald Trump as President is what has caused me to grow these breasts.

My sweet wife leant me one of her black bras, which I am now wearing as I write this. The bra has helped ease the weighted discomfort in my chest. But now I feel this tight constriction across my entire chest and back. Is this what women have to deal with everyday? Is this what bras feel like for them? If so, just like Donald Trump and all his male counterparts, I have yet again underestimated what women have to deal with everyday. No man, no matter how rich and studly, could tolerate this feeling of being hugged tightly around their chest all day long. No way.

 
I don’t feel as angry today. Anger is just a wave, I keep telling myself. The shock seems to be wearing off and I am accepting that as a result of the election of Donald Trump as President, nothing has changed and everything has changed. The sun has still come up. There are birds eating from my backyard bird feeder. I can hear cars racing by outside my home. But the far right has seized power in America. Every advancement America has made with regards to equality for all people over the past eight years has been undone. White patriarchy is now back in power. And I have a pair of decent sized female breasts hanging from my chest.

My wife told me that hopefully as my anger subsides, the breasts will decrease. What does this mean? I have to go to work today so I am not sure how long this will take. If I really try to let go of my anger now, will the breasts go quickly away? But anger is not really something I can get rid of. All I can do is step back, breathe and not identify with it. When it completely goes away is not really up to me. What if it doesn’t go away for as long as Donald Trump is in power?

A great deal of Americans are still celebrating today. They are thrilled that a multi-billionaire, far right extremist has seized control of the highest office in the world. Some people are not happy about this but are trying to make peace with what has happened. I am really upset about it and will not pretend like everything will be ok. I will not take my mother’s advice and just try to see the positives. What is positive about this? I am the one who has ended up with a pair of good-sized, female breasts hanging from my chest.

Everyone else seems to be getting on just fine.

Stuff To Make Sandwiches With

All of our lives are running away from us and all we have to let us know that this is happening is our withered reflections when looking in mirrors. I am someone who is continually aware of how my life is running away from me. Often I will look at pictures of people in the 1950’s and 60’s and think about how their lives have completely run away from them. I am well aware that I am up against the same fate, every moment of every day.

I have a particular practice or daily exercise that I employ for better managing the feelings of dread and futility that arise when a person is aware of their life running away from them. I make sandwiches. I try to make at least two sandwiches a day but on a bad day I will make five. There is no greater satisfaction in my life than eating a sandwich that I have made. The thicker the better. I do not enjoy thin sandwiches. Thin sandwiches are for those who are not courageous. Thin sandwich makers are so afraid of the realities of life that they do everything to calorically restrict themselves so they can feel the illusory impression of being immortal and unaffected by aging. I prefer thick sandwiches because not only do they satiate the more fear prone parts of my brain, but they also allow me to better enjoy a life that I know is running away from me.

I use the healthiest bread that I can buy. This means bread with a high fiber and seed content. Not only is this bread delicious but I do not feel so guilty after eating large amounts of it. I know that I have superseded my daily recommended fiber intake and this helps me feel more confident about the workings of my bowels. I prefer using organic mayonnaise on whatever high fiber bread I use, but since my wife is vegan I normally have to resort to using organic vegan mayonnaise. The good thing about using organic vegan mayonnaise is that I can use larger amounts of it and not feel so doomed to coronary heart disease. I also like to use large amounts of organic spicy mustard, the names of which I can never pronounce. The combination of organic vegan mayonnaise and organic spicy mustard usually and temporarily suspends any kind of existential dread.

My wife and I both try to keep our refrigerator loaded with stuff to make sandwiches with. My wife is younger than I. Not much younger in terms of the span of human history on planet earth but much younger in terms of the deterioration of the human body. Fourteen years can make a massive difference when it comes to the ravages caused by aging. But because my wife also suffers from a certain existential awareness (a fundamental signifier of an intelligent mind) she too is aware of life running away from not only herself but also from her beloved husband and her even more beloved three dogs. In a way I envy her youth. Even if in youth a person is aware of their lives running away from them they still have the underlying comfort of knowing that they still have a good amount of time to lose. Once you are older, the awareness of life running away from you fills you with more despair (or denial) because you know you have much less time to lose.

My wife has picked up the sandwich making practice from me. She also finds it an effective way to deal with the awareness of a run away life. I appreciate that she dedicates just as much interest in keeping our fridge filled with stuff to make sandwiches with as I do. Because my wife is still young enough where she still has the ability to have an incredibly attractive figure (which often provides a person with the fit illusion of being immortal) she does not make her sandwiches as thick as I do. She usually makes her sandwiches with things like organic vegan cheddar cheese, organic sprouts, organic pickles, organic lettuce or organic kale and organic sauerkraut. For some reason she always insists on toasting her seeded wheat bread, which is something I never do. This is another luxury of being young- you feel like you have more time to spend on doing trivial things. I never toast my bread, only because I feel like I just do not have the time. For her she still has a good amount of time to give to such superfluous things. (This is why most good art, literature, film and music is made in youth. A young person has more time to spend passionately dedicated to such things. Once a person is older they just want to spend time with life or living because there is less time and energy to give towards working at things that feel more superfluous the older and sicker a person gets.)

I stuff my sandwiches with a plethora of different organic things. I use various kinds of organic nuts, organic onions, organic vegan cheeses, wild tuna or wild salmon from a can, organic humus, organic pickles, organic sprouts, organic vegan sausages (usually uncooked), organic cabbage, organic kale, organic mung beans, organic sauerkraut, organic habaneros and organic baked barbecue potato chips for extra crunch. I find that stuffing my sandwiches with things that create a crunch effect allows me to discharge a lot of the anger and frustration that I feel with regards to a life that is running away from me and everyone I love. Crunching is a very effective way to deal with this chronic frustration that I feel in my life.

It requires mindfulness and slow movements to keep everything in the sandwich rather than falling out on the plate. What I have found is that with the right positioning of everything inside the sandwich and with mindful movements, overboard condiments can be avoided when eating a thick sandwich. Whatever things do fall out on to my plate, I make sure to eat once I am finished eating my sandwich. I look as this as a kind of dessert.

My grandfather, on my father’s side, used to do a similar thing. After the age of forty he was also very aware of life running away from him. He often spoke about how he could not believe how much older everyone was getting. “One minute they were young and filled with life and now they are older and filled with all kinds of unwanted obligations, wear and tear,” he would say when talking about friends, family members, old lovers and celebrities that he liked. Every day for lunch he would eat a large hoagie sandwich. He lived in Philadelphia where there was a hoagie/steak sandwich establishment on every corner. Philadelphians obviously are also very aware of life running away from them and deal with it by making and eating very large sandwiches. Have you seen how big these things are? Some people refer to them as subs, because they are so long. My grandfather would eat one all to himself. Everyday. All alone. A sandwich filled with not organic cheese, meat, hot peppers, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, mustard, mayonnaise, vinegar and oil. He would shake not organic pepper and salt on top and whenever he took me to a hoagie place on one of my yearly visits he would always say, “It is all in the bread kid.” To this day I still believe that to be true but instead of using freshly baked white sourdough bread, I use high fiber wheat or rye seeded bread.

I have found that making sandwiches on a daily basis has been an effective, short-term way for me to deal with the day-to-day knowledge that my life is running away from me. The thicker the sandwich the better. But I also realize that this is a short term solution. I have to keep making sandwiches, sometimes several times a day in order for it to work. Once I am done making and eating my sandwich it is a matter of an hour or so before my sense of life going quickly by returns. I notice when it returns because I feel somewhat depressed. This is usually when I will make another sandwich. If I am away from my home and not able to make a sandwich I will settle for having one made for me. It does not work as well, but it still eases the pain of knowing that it is all quickly passing by.

By the way, now it is Fall. I stay inside as much as I can when it is Fall. Fall is a season that can literally fall on you, so please proceed with caution. Look up, even as you eat sandwiches.

The Authentic Hipster, A Manifesto

 

It’s an over used word, I know.

Hipster.

I have friends that refuse to use that word anymore.

They feel like it’s a word that has lost its inherent counter-cultural value because of its now globally popular use.

Now-a-days, for the right price, anyone can be a hipster.

Seems as if hipsters have become commonplace.

Ironically, to be a hipster is now a popular trend and it’s packaged and sold in mega chain stores like Urban Outfitters and Target, across the globe.

I find that it is more common now than ever that hipsters are often confused for what I generally refer to as the real thing.

Like any real thing, you know it when you see it.

Nick Cave is the real thing.

Tom Waits.

Jim Jarmusch.

David Lynch.

A tree.

Sonic Youth.

However, it seems as if it is harder to tell with a hipster whether or not she or he is the real thing or just in it for the vanity.

When I meet a hipster who is really hip I often say something like, “so nice to meet someone who is the real thing.”

For purposes of this manifesto rather than using what I realize is a somewhat trite phrase (the real thing) to designate that which I feel is authentic, I am just going to use the word authentic.

The use of the word authentic is just an easy way to cut to the bone.

It gets right to the point.

I understand my friends (two in particular) rejection of the word hipster and I realize that this rejection is precisely what makes them so hip.

The word hipster seems to have lost all connection with the word authentic.

At their core, these two friends of mine are the very embodiment of what it means to be an authentic hipster (more about them later).

I, however, do not mind the use of the word hipster.

I also realize that many people have a problem with the word authentic.

They feel it is too general and is filled with spiritual and psychotherapeutic self-help undertones.

Ok, maybe so, but for the purposes of this manifesto I will use the term authentic hipster only because, like I said, it gets to the point.

Recently, I have been making a concerted effort to use the term authentic hipster more often.

When I use the term authentic hipster it always starts some kind of conversation.

What is an authentic hipster? people tend to ask.

This is my doorway into their perceptions.

For this reason I use the term whenever I can: family gatherings, social engagements, one-on-one conversations, art exhibitions, when volunteering at the homeless shelter, at work and even when engaging with my server at a restaurant.

Granted, maybe I am over zealous in my use of the term authentic hipster, but there is a manifest reason why I am using this word so much.

In the same way that a political activist is passionate about letting people know about what is going on in say Gaza, I want to let people know about the difference between a hipster and an authentic hipster.

It’s important to me.

Until now, I have not taken the time to write a manifesto about the authentic hipster (maybe this is because I am lazy or maybe because I feel a bit too unhip to write a hipster manifesto), so talking about it was my way of making manifest my inner beliefs.

Until now I would talk about the authentic hipster, enlighten people about what it actually means to be an authentic hipster, instead of writing it down.

This manifesto was born out of all those pleasant and sometimes unpleasant conversations.

Throughout my readings and conversations, I have found that the majority of people have very little understanding about what it means to really be a hipster.

They think of Urban Outfitters and rich parents.

Or they think of white pretentious people with mustaches, beards, an American Express card, tomboyish women’s clothes and bad attitudes.

They think of a group of overly stylish people who think that they are better than everyone else.

Admittingly there are indeed elements of all of these traits in the authentic hipster.

The difference is that the authentic hipster, the real thing, is not a person who is just a consumer and a follower of popular trends.

The authentic hipster has constructed a life out of a love for things creative, counter-cultural, underground and artisan.

They are the ambassadors of good taste (you can see this in their clothes, their food, their music, their homes, their cars, the movies they watch and on and on).

They are not in it for the money (vanity) so to speak.

They care about quality and independence.

They care about a radical revision of the way we live our often mundane lives.

When I use the word hipster, I am referring to what I believe is the essence or the root use of this mainly Americanized word (it is also used in England a lot).

I am going back to the beats and using the word hip in the same spirit that they used the word beat.

To be beat was to be cool.

To be beat was to be self educated and passionate about literature, philosophy, art, spirituality, poetry, sculpture, crafts, sexuality, fringe music, style, drugs, and leftist, anti-government political ideologies.

To be beat was to be counter-cultural.

To be beat was to be free of ordinary and often religious social restraints and to dress in a way that was evidence that you were not “one of them.”

Every time that I use the word hipster I am invoking the spirits of Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Patti Smith, Brion Gysin, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassidy, Diana di Prima and Herbert Huncke- for they are the original hipster.

Hell, I could go all the way back to Rimbaud, Keats and Blake but for purposes of this manifesto I will stay with the beats.

The beats really are the soil that the contemporary hipster grows out from.

Most people that I talk to about hipsters think that beat refers to something that happens in a song or in the heart.

Or if they have heard of the beatniks, their knowledge of the genre goes as far as On The Road (which, in most causes they did not even finish reading).

As I often say, it is impossible to understand what it means to actually be an authentic hipster without an understanding of the beat generation.

It is like referring to The White House without any knowledge of who lives there and what goes on inside.

It goes without saying that my two friends (who do not want to be named and who are a lot hipper than I am) were deeply influenced by the beats.

This is the main difference between an authentic hipster and all the rest.

The authentic, contemporary hipster is in some way, shape or form deeply influenced by the beats.

If you consider yourself to be a hipster and you have no or very little knowledge of the beat generation, I recommend that you start reading.

Without this knowledge under your belt, you are an imposter.

You just look good.

My two hipster friends will probably not even get this far in reading what I have written.

By the end of the first page they have probably been put off by my continual use of the word hipster.

Ok, so be it.

They probably think I am being corny by using the term authentic hipster.

Or maybe it is too painful for them to be accurately mirrored in the way I am attempting to do here?

Who knows.

The authentic hipster derives a great deal of his or her confidence from the fact that they are very unique and there are only a select few whom they share things in common with.

This is why often times the authentic hipster is a complete and absolute loner.

When they look around them at their fellow man and women they often feel isolated and disconnected.

This is why the authentic hipster dedicates so much time, interest and energy towards finding musicians, poets, writers, designers, artists and other out of the box creative individuals.

They are continually reaching towards finding some kind of specific connection with something or someone radically different to pull them out of what often feels like a vacuous, uninspired and soulless void.

The Urban Outfitters hipsters don’t even see the void.

They are too distracted by their Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter accounts (the authentic hipster often uses these social media platforms as well, but they are doing it for deeper connection and creative expression- not just distraction, frivolous socializing and vanity.

What my two hipster friends have indirectly taught me is that to be the real thing means that the authentic hipster is actively engaged keeping alive a particular underground or counter-culture that the majority of people in the world have no idea exists.

The reason for this lack of knowledge of this underground culture is because the majority of people do not care enough and/or are not educated enough to dig even a few feet beneath the level of information that is fed to them by popular media outlets.

The majority of people just take the few popular and almost always corporate (big business) options that they are given (what is accessible) and do not go much deeper than that (the majority of hipsters are victims of this corporate, ideological branding process that happens to most in America).

The authentic hipster, on the other hand, keeps the non-corporate, the independent, the counter-cultural alive.

They are heroes of the underground and they have a genuine and often inspired interest in cool niche things.

Most of the niche things that they are interested in are not even noticeable by the majority of people.

Like when the Native Americans could not even see the huge Spanish ships just off the shore because they had no reference point for these ships.

The majority of people have no reference point for the cool niche things (clothes, music, books, furniture, art, fashion, film, design, etc) that the authentic hipster is interested in.

Like the fleet of Spanish ships just off the shore, the majority of people don’t know what the fuck to make of these niche things so in their confusion and ignorance they call them pretentious.

What a tragic misinterpretation.

The authentic hipster is a master crafts person.

They craft their life away from the mundane norm and towards the beautiful, the creative, the organic, the indie, the cultured, the profound, the soul.

They look aesthetically refined because of the careful choices that they make.

Their attention to detail, durability, quality and style in all that they wear, eat, watch, listen to, talk about and on and on creates a way of living that is closer to a work of art than it is to anything else.

Here is a good example of some authentic hipster looks: http://thestreetstylecurator.tumblr.com/tagged/menswear

Oscar Wilde said that an artist’s greatest work of art is themselves, and the authentic hipster has mastered this way of living.

Everything from their food to their hair to their watches, belts, socks, t-shirts, socks is refined, independently made, artisan and attended to with a concern for detail.

Have no confusion about it- the authentic hipster is much more alive than most people are.

They are engaged with being alive in ways that most people are not.

Life and art are one and the same for them.

In listening to say a piece of experimental music on vinyl, or in reading a highly literary book by an obscure counter-cultural author, they are communicating with a radical energy that is often liberating.

This is why if we can all get beyond our judgments and inferiority complexes (which is natural because authentic hipsters make everyone else acutely aware of just how unhip they are), there is a lot that we can learn from the authentic hipster.

They can teach us things that will enhance our quality of life.

They can teach us about quality and independence.

They can teach us about doing things ourselves (DYI) rather than asking others to do the work for us.

They can teach us about creating our own identities rather than going along with what is socially acceptable and commonplace.

They can teach us about the finer things in life- excellent quality food, smells, sounds and visual imagery.

They can teach us about how to make creativity into a way of being in the world.

In short- they can teach us about how to live independently.

Of course my two hipster friends would not admit to any of this.

If they are still reading this they probably think that I have gone off the deep end.

They might agree that they are deeply interested in niche things.

They might even also admit to having deep reverence for anything underground.

But like I said before, the very thing that makes my two friends authentic hipsters is that they do not see themselves in my description of what it means to be an authentic hipster.

They have an innate aversion.

Only the imposter hipster is like Narcissist who sees his own reflection on the surface of the water and writes all kinds of status updates about it on their Facebook accounts.

These imposter hipsters have done a great dis-service to each and every authentic hipster.

It is mainly for these imposter hipsters that I am writing this.

Please see the errors of your ways and try to correct them.

Stop being just a consumer and learn about the deeper history and meanings behind the very way of being that you have so mindlessly embraced.

Authentic hipsters avoid all things large scale and corporate.

You will not find them at Target or Urban Outfitters (well maybe sometimes).

You will not find them at the new big blockbuster movie (well maybe).

You will not find them on CBS, ABC or NBC (well, you might).

Educate yourself about the counter-culture, artisanal movements and the underground.

Years and years can be spent learning about these things.

There is an endless amount of information and experiences out there but you will find none of it in your local mall, those giant festivals, in the news or on TV.

Just imposters.

Lift yourself out of your limbo so that you can become more informed and move more towards embodying what it truly means to be an authentic hipster.

This is the only way that lasting counter-cultural movements can occur; when the majority of those involved are more than just a look.

When they have depth, purpose and a collective vision.

When they are authentically finding ways of being in the world that have not been flattened by the hands of corporate, common place America (work, house payments, kids, Madmen and weekend sporting events).

This is when a radical movement can be born.

But this is the fatal irony inherent in what it means to be an authentic hipster.

An authentic hipster is by their very nature an outsider.

They live on the margins of society because they do not want to have much to do with society.

They could give two shits about politics and starting radical, counter-cultural movements (some however do care about creating small, independent communities).

The authentic hipster is too in love with their books, music, clothes, coffee, food and general way of life to really care too much about larger social issues.

The way they live their life is their act of political protest.

I suppose this is why I have written this brief manifesto.

I just wanted to let you know about what is going on in the fringe areas of major cities and in the less affluent parts of suburban towns.

The authentic hipster is out there.

They are not all imposters.

Next time you judge one, hopefully you will be able to tell the difference.

And if you are an imposter- hopefully you will find some inspiration in these words and deepen your knowledge about what it really means to be hip…..

 

 

My Failed Twitter Experiment

I am deleting my Twitter account today. No more. The key to living a good life is knowing when enough is enough. With Twitter- I have already exceeded my enough is enough point. It is time to come down out of the trees and stop with all the tweeting.

I gave Twitter my best shot. When I started tweeting over a year ago I told myself that I would not allow Twitter to become another fixation like Facebook was. Like someone who quits drinking alcohol and takes up marijuana instead, I thought that Twitter would be a less addictive addition to my life after quitting Facebook. I was wrong. At first I only tweeted once or twice a day, but what captured the majority of my attention was that I could actually read the live time thoughts of various musicians, actors, writers, comics and artists that I admired. I would get excited every time I logged onto Twitter because in some strange way I felt like I was communicating with these minor and major celebrities whom I had always wanted to get to know. I felt like I was apart of their life in some strange way. This was my first mistake. I will come back to this later in my narrative.

From the beginning I knew that I was good at Tweeting. I felt like my tweets had substance, style, depth, originality and a brazen honesty that was like nothing else on Twitter. The name of my Twitter account was The Confessionist and in my bio I explained that I was using Twitter to engage in a radical transparency art experiment. I was not going to hold back. It was my intention to give an honest and uncensored portrayal of the various machinations that go on in my inner life. I did feel like I was over exposing myself, but this slight discomfort was a minor price to pay for my art.

After the first six months on Twitter, without any significant efforts to gain followers, I was proud and satisfied with the fact that I had achieved 98 followers. In my twenties, when I was an unpublished and unrecognized writer (which, to some degree I still am) I always used to say that if I had just one reader that would make all my efforts worth it. So I was grateful to have 98 readers. Well kind of grateful. Ok, well maybe I wanted more. A lot more. Maybe I got greedy.

I could not help but notice that some of the people who I followed had hundreds of thousands of followers. People like Marc Maron, Damien Echols, Raymond Pettibon, Yoko Ono and the lead singer from that band The Flaming Lips all had more followers than I could wrap my head around. Their tweets were no better than mine, they were less prolific tweeters than I, hardly as honest but they managed to have more followers than I have blood cells. I realize that they are all public persons, which exposes them to a wider audience and I am more of a suburban hermit- but still I began to feel like having 98 followers was hardly anything to feel good about. My accomplishment of achieving 98 followers almost felt like a failure in comparison to what these other tweeters had attained. They were like those birds in the trees who have hundreds of birds singing a long with them while I was a bird on a leafless branch with a few birdies looking at me wearily as I tweeted my tune.

The one thing that I read again and again while trying to educate myself about how to get more followers was that a tweeter needs to have patience. Successful tweeting was all about perseverance. Like a long uphill climb, you got to keep going even though you think that you can’t. So I stuck with it despite the fact that the number of my followers had started to dwindle down to 89. I tried not to take the lessening number of followers too personally and I carried on in the dark. Little did I know that a trend had begun.

I started tweeting more. Some days I was the loudest bird on the branch, generating one profound tweet after the next. I was convinced that one day my tweets would be seen for the genius that they were. They would be collected in a book and finally I would get the recognition I deserved. I accepted that for the time being I was a kind of underground, indie tweeter telling it like it was, while very few people had the intelligence or the understanding to grasp what I was saying. Such is the case with most fringe artists. I could live with this. I would tweet things like:

The only thing wrong with people’s mental health is that they do not spend enough time in nature

 

 The only problem with watering in the front yard is that I am exposed to the neighbors

 

 The thing about Twitter is no one misses you when you’re gone.

 

 

It boggles my mind that I would rather stare into an iPhone screen than look up and watch the sky.

 

 

I wonder if Thom Yorke does his own dishes?

 

 

Ok, so as I look over my tweets now I realize that maybe they were not an expression of genius. But they were good enough. Honest fragmented thoughts spelled out nicely on the digital page. I would write one tweet after the next and rather than gaining followers, I noticed the strangest thing happening. Like an airplane slowly falling out of the sky, I was losing followers. At the rate of a few a day! Before I knew it, I was down to 51 followers and I had no idea what I was doing or saying to precipitate this loss. I tried not to think about it.

 

 

I was like a man who was gradually drowning in a lake filled with Twitter. I tried desperately to grab onto whatever I could. In a tired effort to get my number of followers back up to a non-humiliating number, I started following random people whose profiles presented them as someone who might have something interesting to say. Some days I would follow hundreds of random people and then spend an hour or so the next day unfollowing them. My hope was that they would follow me and not notice that I had unfollowed them. I know, a manipulative strategy but I was desperate. Every time I looked at my dwindling number of followers I felt like I was doing something wrong. I felt like I was failing and that my failure was being publicly announced to the world on my Twitter page right beneath the word FOLLOWERS.

 

 

Then my wife informed me that the minor and major celebrities whom I followed, those lucky people who had hundreds of thousands of followers and whose tweets I enjoyed reading because they gave me a feeling of knowing them personally, were being paid per tweet. “Paid per tweet?” “Really?” I was shocked. “You mean they are not Twitter obsessed tweeters like myself but instead are tweeting so often because they are paid per tweet?” In the words of Marc Maron, “What the fuck?” Somehow this seemed unfair. It felt like I had been the unknowing victim of a manipulative magic trick.

 

 

Twitter pays these people per tweet so that all the rest of us unpaid tweeters feel like we are on the same level as the celebrities we admire. Or even worse it keeps us tweeting because we want to be more like them! Twitter presents all of its fellow tweeters as equals in the Twitter universe. But its bullshit! Tweeters are not created equally and those whose celebrity status affords them the ability to have more followers than the average person are getting paid to create the impression that they are just like all the rest of us. Like a bird on a branch whose tweeting gets all the other birdies to tweet along! No thanks.

 

 

I had no choice but to unfollow all of the minor and major celebrities that I was following, which left me feeling all alone in the Twitterverse.

 

 

Gradually the amount of followers that I had dwindled down to 32. 32! For some reason this number seemed to stabilize at 32. I stayed at 32 for months. I have a feeling that these 32 followers are people who have deserted their Twitter accounts. They left their Twitter accounts active but no longer come around anymore. So I have become a lone bird who is tweeting in a tree to the skeletons of birds that once were. Great.

 

 

My time on Twitter has awoken me to the harsh realization of my non-celebrity status. I suppose that before Twitter I thought that I had the potential for fame in me and it was only a matter of time before others picked up on this. But now I see that not only am I a non-celebrity but actually I am a non-non-non-celebrity since I lost the majority of my very few followers on Twitter. To think that back in the day when I had 98 followers was the height of my fame, is a rather sobering thought with regards to my artistic and literary accomplishments in this world. Maybe I am not meant to be one of those people who have thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers. As hard as I have tried, it seems to just not be my fate in this life. Now I need to come down out of the branches, stop tweeting out loud into a larger world that does not want to hear my song and realize that at the age of 42 my fame extends not much further beyond my wife, my dogs and those darn mosquito’s who seem to be addicted to taking a bite out of me every night when I am asleep. Goodbye Twitter.

The Incomplete Writer

 I struggle to complete things. I am the kind of writer who often gives up just before an ending. I have written numerous incomplete short stories, essays and novels, leaving them for dead right before the end. It is a strange affliction that causes me a great deal of envy towards writers who are able to complete their works. It’s a muscle I lack. In order not to retire certain writings to the dump yard of all my other unfinished works, I have decided to collect below several of my most recent unfinished writings before I forever let them go.

 

So This Is What Grief Feels Like

How does a person’s childhood home live inside of them as an adult? I have just returned home after spending several days visiting my childhood home, where my parents still live. I’m sitting on my couch looking out a window into the backyard. The clock, which hangs on the wall, is making a sound that mimics my heartbeat. Or my heartbeat is mimicking the sound of the clock. My eyes feel slightly swollen from a few short-lived bouts of crying. I miss my childhood home in the same way that a person could miss a pet or a recently lost lifelong friend. I am aware that in my absence my childhood home feels emptier. Quieter. I know that it too is sad that I am gone.

The Beard

One morning he awoke and his beard was gone. There was a note on the pillow beside him, which read:

The Tunnel

A man, who cares about his age, needs to move out of the city, who cares about why. He moves to the suburbs, for reasons that I don’t want to understand. The only real problem here is the tunnel, which divides the suburbs from the city. After several weeks of living in the suburbs, the man, like most men, wants to go visit friends in the city. The suburbs are long, flat and lonely and for more reasons than I am wanting to go into here, the man desperately needs to spend more time in the city. Lets just say his mental health depends on it. Ok? But the problem that I previously mentioned is that he has a terrible fear of going through the tunnel. Maybe he is claustrophobic; I am not a medical professional so it is not for me to make that judgment. All I know is that the man’s inability to go through the tunnel is causing him to become trapped in the suburbs. It’s not a good situation for anyone.

The Insomniac

Five o’clock, Sunday morning, is the quietest time on earth. Everything is still. No one is up- except for the insomniacs.

JTimothy’s mind was a web of noise. Solitude was not bliss. Instead it was an uncomfortable collar that felt too tight around his neck. His feet were like ship anchors dragged along his apartment floor. What use was flossing his teeth when all he did was grind them? The only way that JTimothy could get some semblance of sleep was by putting clean, white tube socks on over his bare feet. And even that was not sleep enough.

Rewind. Three years before. JTimothy slept as much as you and I. A dream filled sleep in the nude. Back in those days the mountains outside his window were still skyrockets filled with opportunity and mystery. They had yet become the claustrophobic walls that trapped him. The washing machine and kitchen table were still inanimate objects. Three years later they would become his best friends and chess partners. The insomnia set in before he consciously realized that his adult life had become intolerable. A constant steady flow of deteriorations, disappointments and humiliating defeats. As is often the case with most diseases, JTimothy’s insomnia knew more about JTimothy than JTimothy knew about himself. His tube socks could attest to this .

JTimothy’s apartment was once an alarmingly beautiful space. It was clean and looked like the kind of space that you could tell the tenant enjoyed taking care of it. From the outside you would never know that inside was a well-curated showroom for mid-century modern furniture. Most of his money from his often-suffocating job went into these objects of good taste. The black Eames chairs in the corner were his favorites. What use are the most stylish and aesthetically pleasing objects when you can’t sleep? The insomniac gradually loses the ability to see beauty.

Fast forward to where this story began. JTimothy in tube socks and yesterday’s clothes. It’s 5 o’clock on a Sunday morning and JTimothy is the only person awake in a sleeping world. Macaroni noodles are boiling on the stove. The kitchen table is already hungry. The washing machine is not yet ready to eat. Just the other day JTimothy had to take the washing machine’s drivers license away from it. The washing machine is currently engaging in a hunger strike against what it feels was an unfair decision to strip it of its autonomy. JTimothy became feed up with the washing machine not being around every time he needed to do his laundry. Ever since the washing machine received its drivers license it had been going out constantly with other washing machines. JTimothy knew that the washing machine had been going to parties and he was concerned that the washing machine would drink and drive. Or even worse- what if it fell in love with a dryer and ran away? He could not admit it but JTimothy was jealous. Deep down he was annoyed that his washing machine was having more fun than he was.

The insomniac can become very possessive. There were times that JTimothy believed that even the mountains belonged to him.

JTimothy paced around his apartment. What had happened to him? He listened to the hot water boiling on the electric stove. JTimothy’s insomnia knew that the reason he could not sleep was

The Driver

The only place that the Driver feels safe and in control is in his car. This is why the Driver drives around and around and around. Day after day.

The Novelist

I know what your thinking. “Forty three years old and he has just written his first novel?” Before you jump to any unfair conclusions with regards to my ambition or will power please allow me to explain. But before I explain allow me to give you this brief list of novelists who made no money from writing before the age of 45: Henry Miller, William Burroughs, Tomas Espedal and I know there are many others but I can not come up with the names now.

If by the end of this short autobiographicalish story you do not think that I deserved to be called a novelist, fair enough. If you still think it is too late for me, that I have reached the expiration date as far as being a legitimate writer is concerned, fair enough again.

You see I have been determined to write a novel since the age of seventeen. No, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start where I am at now. The past is the past even though I understand that the past is as important to a writer as the present is to a Zen Buddhist. So let me begin from right now.

The Bathroom

Waiting in a bathroom stall, after having had an impressively large bowel movement, for a man to finish washing his hands and doing his hair because I am too embarrassed to walk out because of the odor I have created. The man is taking forever.

Walls

I built a small space in my backyard where I can be alone. It’s just one small room- no hallways, no bathrooms, no furniture, no windows. Just six walls made of pinewood and a pillow for sitting. I enter the space through a hatch in the roof.

Bad Bosses

I wish I could invent a device that would make all bad bosses disappear.

The Collector

My wife thinks I have a shopping addiction (even though I do not have enough money to have a shopping addiction). She thinks buying things helps me to feel empowered and in control. It’s a momentary substitute for the general sense of helplessness and lack of control that I feel most of the time, she tells me. I’m not sure I agree with her, even though in the end she is almost always right. However, for the purposes of this autobiographical essay, I will pretend as if she is always, completely wrong.

I don’t see myself as a shopping addict. I think the diagnosis is completely missing the point. Through years of study and exploration, I have developed a sensibility for the finer, more alternative things in life. In the same way that the archeologist has spent years studying so that she or he can identify and collect important objects, I have been refining my ability to

One more:

Chronic Pain (a memoir about a son’s life long struggle with a difficult father)

I was having a difficult time breathing. It felt like something heavy was resting on top of my lungs all night. As I sit up from a restless nights sleep, I struggle to breathe air into my lungs. It feels like trying to pump air into a bicycle tire that is almost full. My wife is still sleeping. She is wrapped up in heavy blankets, like a sausage inside a sourdough bun. I don’t feel rested but it’s 6:20am and I am ready to go.

My wife and I drove for six hours to visit the house were I spent my childhood and grew up into an angry young man. After thirty-five years my parents still live in this aging mansion, which sits on two acres of beautiful Northern California land. The house sits on top of a hill overlooking the affluent country club, which it is apart of. Twenty years ago I remember how upset my father was when the country club association started building larger houses in the oak tree filled hills behind his house. No longer would he be on top of the world- now more successful and wealthier people would be looking down on him.

It’s a cold November morning. Wet leaves cover the damp concrete ground as my wife and I load our suitcases into the back of our financed Prius. I’m too tired and sad to talk. I just want to get this over with as quietly as possible. Once we have loaded up the car with all our stuff we return inside to make sure we have not forgotten anything. As I look around I’m feeling a deep sense of grief. It’s been a difficult weekend visit with my parents and a part of me feels like this may be the last time I will ever return home again. I try to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake my parents. We have already said our goodbyes the night before.

Before retiring to bed last night my father came up to me and in his strange way tried to make amends for the fight he had started the day before. “We should talk on the phone once a week so we can improve our relationship son. I am who I am and I’m not going to change but I want to be your friend,” he said while standing a bit too much in my personal space. I admit, I felt threatened and annoyed. We were standing in a hallway that was filled with a history of my childhood battles with my father. “I don’t need you to be my friend, I need you to be a father,” I replied. “Son I’ve already done the best I could as your father. You’re a grown man now and it’s time to be friends.” I felt slightly confused and uncomfortable, like my father was once again trying to make me agree to something that was good for him but inherently bad for me. He gave me a hug goodnight. I told him to sleep well and with his signature negativity he said, “yeah I’m going to go die.” I knew that indirectly he was trying to imply that our dynamic had worn him out.

I stood at my old bedroom window and looked out into the expansive backyard, where I had spent so much of my lonely and unhappy youth. The same backyard furniture that I sat on as a child was still there and so were all the dangling bushes that I used to sing to while pretending that they were the hands of adoring fans reaching out to touch me. How can one be so sad, angry and unhappy in the midst of such beauty? I thought to myself. Did I even see the beauty when I was growing up? I turn around, turn out the bedroom lights and say to my wife, “Ready to go?” We have a six-hour drive back to LA ahead of us. Before I close the front door behind me, I take one final listen to the sounds inside the house that I love so much. I can hear the subtle sounds of the house settling. I can also hear the hallow sounds that a large house makes when everything inside is still. Upstairs, I can hear my father snoring and I imagine that my mother is laying in bed with her eyes half-open, tears on her cheeks while she listens to me leave.

Where The Hell Do All The Black Socks Go?

Over the months and years I began to notice the gradual decline of black socks. I would often notice that my sock drawer was filled with a dozen pair of nice black socks and as the months went by my collection of black socks dwindled. At a certain point during the year I would notice that I would only have one or two pairs of black socks left and then one day I would wonder silently to myself, where the hell do all the black socks go?

This recurring episode happened at least twenty times in my adult life. Ever since I started buying my own socks at the age of thirty-one, I noticed that there would be a gradual decline in the amount of black socks I owned. But I was young and self deprecating so I just assumed that the loss of black socks was my fault. I smoked a good amount of marijuana then, so I thought that I had misplaced my black socks when stoned. I also did my laundry at a laundry mat so it was more than possible that I was accidentally leaving my black socks behind in the dryer.

But as I began making more money, moved into an apartment with its own washer and dryer set and quit smoking marijuana I noticed that there was still this gradual decline in my black sock collection. But still I did not make much of it. I was thirty-four and preoccupied with that one lingering question that plagues most young men- what was I going to be when I grew up? As a result I had little time to worry about disappearing black socks. I would just go to Target, buy a $7.99 four pack of black dress socks and then get on with my life.

As my life became more domesticated and I found myself a married man, I started becoming more perplexed about where the hell all the black socks went. I was not yet at the stage where I was desperately searching for an answer but I was living with this question circulating around in my head. Since I was married and not making much money I was living on a budget. The budget was as tight as my pants had become. There was not enough money left over at the end of the month to go buy more black socks as I had done in the past. Now I had to learn to live with fewer pairs of black socks.

Every time I would sit down and put on my black socks I would wonder about them. Where the hell do you guys go? The mystery became too uncomfortable to carry around in my mind. I had to begin an official investigation. On the day I turned 40 I was getting dressed for my birthday dinner. I went to my sock drawer and noticed that there was only one black sock left. I had known for certain that only a few weeks ago I still had several pairs of black socks left. Now there was just one black sock. What the hell?

Dressed nicely for my birthday dinner I found myself inside of my dryer. A strange place to find oneself at 6:14 pm on their birthday, but I was driven by a irascible desire to solve the mystery. Enough was enough. First I looked inside of the washing machine. Nothing. Then I proceeded to climb into the dryer in search of some kind of explanation for the disappearance of all but one of my black socks. I was determined. As I moved around in the dryer looking for some clue, I accidentally turned the dryer carousel and ended up spinning upside down. I held myself in a manageable position by pressing both hands against the side of the dryer but my head was pressing into the metallic bumps of the carousel. I was in some pain and experienced some acid reflux. I did not know how to get out of this inverted position so I ended up kicking the top of the dryer in an attempt to turn myself right side up. But when I kicked the top of the dryer something broke. For a moment I became afraid that I would fall through some kind of dryer version of the rabbit hole and land in a massive pile of black socks. I envisioned my karma being that of a man forever trapped in a sea of all the worlds lost black socks. I panicked.

Fortunately my wife was able to hear loud thumping sounds coming from the laundry room and was smart enough to check out what was going on. When she found me inverted and stuck in the dryer she immediately began to laugh. What the hell are you doing? she asked me with an amused smile on her face. With her help I managed to stretch one leg over my stomach and head and onto the laundry room floor, turn my body right side up and climb out from the dryer. I did a kind of yoga like stretch that has left me with back pain until this day. I was trying to find out where the hell all my black socks went, I said once I had both feet on the ground, was standing straight and could breathe a sigh of relief.

At my 40th birthday dinner that evening I was wearing my one black sock and a borrowed gray sock from my wife. The sock was so small that I could feel it quietly ripping every time I moved my toes. It was obvious that I was preoccupied with something. People were asking me if anything was wrong. I then asked some of my male friends if they had the same problem with their black socks. I was surprised to find that they all had experienced the phenomena of disappearing black socks. Even the women at the table had noticed the same thing happening in their sock collection. We all tried to figure out where the hell the black socks go. There were so many possible explanations. They get left behind in the dryer, drop on the floor and get lost when we carry our laundry, etc. The only explanation that made any possible sense was that when we wash our clothes the black socks stick to the insides of our clothes and then when we wear those clothes out into the world the black socks fall out all over the place. But still I was not satisfied with this explanation. I mean if they fell out all over the place why would we not see them everywhere?

I became preoccupied with trying to figure out where all the black socks went. I did a lot of research on Google, but found no answers other than some Russian sock collector who offered a mystical explanation for disappearing black socks. I stopped purchasing black socks because I could no longer afford to lose them. My sock drawer became filled with red, brown and blue socks and over the months I noticed that none of them disappeared.

Then just yesterday I was on a walk. I often walk with my head down to avoid eye contact with passers-by. I also like to look at the ground moving under my feet. As I was walking I came upon a single black sock lying on the dirty sidewalk. I did not think much of it until a few minutes later when I happened upon another single black sock lying on the sidewalk. I was perplexed but I wrongly assumed that these black socks belonged to homeless people.

I continued to walk on and began noticing black sock after black sock after black sock lying on the sidewalk. What was going on? I lifted my head up and said out loud, what the hell? Where had all these black socks come from? I had walked this route at least three times a week and never noticed all these blacks socks before. Suddenly there were black socks EVERYWHERE. All over the sidewalks and in the streets. I stopped walking and looked  around. Cars were driving over the black socks and people walked past them as if they were not there. No one except myself seemed to notice all the discarded black socks all over the place. I let out a little giggle because finally I was seeing something that no one else saw. And then like all smart and logical married men on a budget, I proceeded to put aside my pride, bend over and start picking up and putting as many black socks as I could fit into my pockets.

Interview With Myself

My interview with myself is taking place on Monday morning at 8:43am in my kitchen. I am sitting at my round kitchen table, which looks out into my backyard where there is a large lawn and an even larger Mulberry tree. My German shepherd, who is obsessed with the frenetic squirrels running around in the trees, is currently hyper-focused upon one squirrel in particular and cannot stop chasing it around. I am feeling rather annoyed that my dog cannot just sit still, relax and enjoy the morning. There is an empty bowl of brown rice cereal on the kitchen table with the spoon still resting inside the bowl. There is also an empty mug, sitting besides the bowl, which earlier was filled with green tea. My hair is not brushed and I am still wearing the same clothes that I slept in.

 

Interviewer: Good morning Randall. Thank you for meeting with me at such an early time. I know that you are not a morning person.

Randall: Good morning. Not a problem. It is true that I am not much of a morning person but it is a pleasure to be here. I am sorry that I am not more dressed up for our interview but since it is taking place in our home I did not think you would mind.

Interviewer: No I do not mind at all. Is there anything that you need before we begin this interview?

Randall: Actually a little bit more green tea would be nice and if it is at all possible to get our dog to stop running around outside that would be helpful also.

Interviewer: Well let me see what I can do.

[Interviewer and Randall take a five-minute or so break to boil some more hot water and to try and get the dog to relax. Randall suggests that I feed the dog since Randall has not done that yet.]

Interviewer: Ok, so I have given our dog a raw hide to chew on which seems to have calmed her down. Is the green tea to your liking?

Randall: Yes it is is. Thanks for taking care of these things.

Interviewer: Not a problem. So should we begin the interview?

Randall: Why not.

Interviewer: I guess my first question for us is why did you want to conduct an interview with yourself? Some people might see this as a very strange, unstable and even selfish thing to do.

Randall: Well first off, if people chose to view my interviewing myself as strange, selfish, unstable or even ridiculous that is ok with me. I have always encouraged people to think for themselves and I welcome adversity or negative criticism. I think that divergent points of view are important for intelligent and interesting discourse. If I needed everyone to think like I do, or to agree with me- what a bore. As far as wanting to interview myself- why not? I have lived for 41 years now and have been waiting for someone to want to interview me. No one has come along wanting to do so, so I have decided to hell with it, why not just go ahead and interview myself. Plus I am tired of watching other people being interviewed. I wanted to see what it is like being the one being interviewed.

Interviewer: Well you make a good point. One can wait an entire lifetime for a person to come along who wants to interview them- for most people that person never comes. I think that every human on the planet should be interviewed at least once in his or her lifetime, since it is my belief that every person has a unique and captivating life story to tell. If you had to summarize what your unique and captivating life story would be what would you say?

Randall: Hmmmm. That is a good question Randall. I guess I would say that it would be how I developed into the man that I am today. As you know it has been a bizarre journey. We have been many different people in our lifetime and I find it interesting to have ended up where we have. I grew up in a rather economically privileged situation. I was raised in a country club where my worst fear was getting hit in the head with a golf ball. That is not actually true but I think it is funny to say. Even though I grew up in a seemingly safe and privileged home I feared many things. Probably more things than I should have. I wanted to be a professional tennis player but that did not work out. I almost did not graduate high school. I went to a very expensive private college where I was totally disinterred in school and obsessed with fitting in, women and partying. When I got out of college I was lost and managed to spend my graduation gift of $10,000 dollars in less than three or four months. Thus began a decade and a half of living in what I consider to be hand to mouth conditions and working at odd minimum wage jobs. I worked as a mortician’s assistant, a shoe salesman, a waiter, a bartender, a suitcase salesman, a supermarket checker, a physical therapists assistant and eventually a high school teacher. During this time I wanted to be an artist and a writer but the problem was that I spent more time reading and hanging out than I did making actual work (even though I did make a good deal of work). At one point I was obsessed with wanting to be my generations greatest writer and painter but now I think it is fair to state that I was very misguided, confused and often intoxicated.

Interviewer: Who do you blame for putting these strange and romantic literary and artistic ideals and expectations into our head?

Randall: I mainly blame Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller and Charles Burkowski.

Interviewer: How about Franz Kafka, Rimbaud and Artaud?

Randall: Yes them also.

Interview: So is it fair to say that our life story is one of from riches to rags?

Randall: Maybe not rags but definitely used clothes and cheap food (if you do not count the nice meals we ate with my parents and the occasional and generous shopping sprees that my father would take me on). I would also add that it is a story of from riches to rags but also back again to maybe not riches but a kind of comfortability and dignity.

Interviewer: I know this is not often discussed but is it true that when you were 28 and just a few months away from finishing your master’s degree in English Literature you dropped out?

Randall: It is true. I lost interest. Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Robert Browning, E.M. Forester and other English writers burned me out. Even though I excelled in the graduate program, when it was time for me to write my thesis I realized I did not want the degree anymore. I thought it was too pretentious for me to call myself a master of anything and as a young, idealistic man who had big dreams of worldwide literary recognition- a master’s degree seemed futile and too conventional.  So I just stopped working on my thesis and went on with my life.

Interviewer: Do you regret not finishing?

Randall: I do. I suppose that is the main reason why I went back to graduate school much later in life to get my masters degree in Psychology. I no longer consider myself to be much of an idealist and my dreams of worldwide literary recognition have faded away thus allowing me the room within which to pursue other things.

Interviewer: More normal, real world things?

Randall: I suppose so.

[The dog has finished her raw hide and is now pacing around on the deck. Randall seems to be a bit distracted by the dog]

Randall: I just do not understand why she cannot sit down and relax. I love our dog but she paces and paces around all day long. It drives me nuts.

Interviewer: You understand that she is not even a year old yet right?

Randall: I do but still it drives me nuts.

Interviewer: Why?

Randall: I don’t know.

Interviewer: Is it fair to say that you are a person who spends a lot of his time in a relaxed state, that you have figured out the art of relaxation and when others cannot relax it annoys you?

Randall: Are you suggesting that I get annoyed with others, dogs and humans, when they are not more like me?

Interviewer: I guess that is what I am getting at. If other people do not behave as you would want them to behave, or even behave like you behave then you are annoyed with them. They drive you nuts?

Randall: I am sure there is some truth to that. What you are suggesting is that I am not a tolerant person.

Interviewer: No, I think you are a very tolerant person- just a bit intolerant towards behavior that is different from your own.

Randall: Hmmmm. Well I would like to think that this is not true but I suppose that there is some truth to it.

Interviewer: Have you had people in your life who have not been tolerant of your behavior? Who have gotten annoyed or angry at you because you have behaved differently than they wanted you to behave?

Randall: I have.

Interview: Well maybe that is where you have learned not to not be tolerant of other people’s behavior that is different from your own.

Randall: You are probably right. Did you come here to interview me or to psychoanalyze me?

Interviewer: I am sorry. I suppose that I am just interested in the kind of person that we are.

Randall: I think that to find out “who we are” is biting off much too much of a subject matter for this short interview.

Interviewer: I suppose you are correct. Lets move on. I know that recently you moved to LA, moved into a new home, got married and began your internship working as a therapist in private practice. How do you feel about all of these big life transitions?

Randall: Well to be honest I am someone who has struggled for a long time. I have had a few really difficult relationships in my life, had serious financial concerns and have suffered from a chronic anxiety condition. For the first time in as long as I can remember, maybe even the first time in my life I can actually say with a firm conviction that my life is blessed. Things are really, really good. My relationships all feel healthy, my marriage is remarkable in every way and moving to LA feels like what it must feel like for someone who has been in jail for 41 years to finally get released. As you know, I moved from the area in which we grew up. I really did not think I was ever going to get out.

Interviewer: Well that is great. I am really happy for us that things are going so well.

Randall: They are and I am happy for us to. I am aware that the flip side of the coin is always there. Things can go horribly wrong horribly at any moment. This is why I am enjoying my life right now, drinking it in so to speak since for most of my life I feel like I was on the other side of the coin. I imagine that one of the greatest feelings in life is to end up in a place that you always wanted to be, but never imagined was possible. I’m enjoying this feeling at the moment.

Interviewer: How is our health holding up?

Randall: Well I must say that it is better than it has been in a long time. Years of struggle and anxiety have certainly weakened me but my Zen meditation practice and the love and support that I receive from my wife has without a doubt saved my life. She waters me with so much love that my roots have become stronger. My anxiety and worry is much less than it has ever been and all in all I feel good. I still struggle with breathing difficulties, restless leg syndrome and occasional obsessive frightening thoughts but things are not nearly as bad as when I lived up north.

Interviewer: I agree with you. I have noticed this as well. I think our wife is some kind of divine intervention. A miracle.

Randall: True. I am grateful for her existence in our life. Where would we be without her?

Interviewer: In a very different place. Probably still anxious and stuck up north.

Randall: Yeah.

Interviewer: Well I suppose that it is probably time for us to wrap up this interview. We need to take a shower, get dressed and get on with our day. I have a few final question for you before I go.

Randall: Ask away.

Interviewer: Do you have any big projects in the works? Anything that you are working on for the future?

Randall: You know for so many years I worked on things for the sake of bettering my future. I painted and wrote with future hopes, dreams and expectations in mind. Day after day I worried about how I was going to survive economically and what I was going to do with my life. It was torture. Now I am at a place in my life where I am really taking it one day at a time. I am not as driven to be a successful writer and/or painter as I was two or three years ago. I am now just taking it one day at a time. Today I want to read, work in my garden and go for a walk with my dog. Tomorrow I may decide to write an essay, work on a novel or make a painting. Or maybe not. I am no longer as tortured by the expectations of others and my own expectations. I don’t worry about what I am going to do with my life because I am doing my life right now.

Interviewer: Are you still as worried about money as you once were?

Randall: Maybe a bit but not as much. I may run out of money tomorrow. Ten years ago I would have had tremendous anxiety about this. Now I try to budget my money the best I can and leave the rest up to fate. I am doing my part to create a situation for myself where I have the potential to make a good income. I am just not worrying about the future as much as I used to because I am much more in the moment of my life and for the first time in a long time- I feel that it is the place I deserve to be.

Interviewer: Do you still suffer from feeling like a failure, as you once did?

Randall: Not so much. It is really interesting to me how life evolves, how we change as human beings. Sure I wish that today I was an accomplished writer and artists who was able to pay his bills and be economically comfortable as a result of his art. But I no longer feel like a failure because I have not attained this status. Sometimes when I watch a musician or artist being interviewed I get jealous. I feel envious that they have been able to create a life for themselves, which is a result of doing their art. Just the other day I was watching an interview with my generation’s most successful writer and I felt envious. It must be nice owning a home and eating food that you earned from doing your art. But this is not how my life has worked out and I think I am in the process of making peace with this. It is a tough one though.

Interviewer: Do you still think about writing and making art as much as you used to?

Randall: I thought you said that you only had a few more questions?

Interviewer: I did but as you know we can be very impulsive and when things come up in our mind we usually have to go with it.

Randall: This is true. Yes I think about art and painting all the time. If ideas for stories and paintings were dollar bills I would be a very rich man. Fortunately I have no shortage of ideas. I suppose what I lack most is the motivation to turn these ideas into things. Most days I would rather hang out with my wife, work in the garden, play with my dog, meditate and/or read a book.

Interviewer: I think you give yourself a tough time. You have created a lot of great things and it is ok that you may not be as motivated to make art or write at the moment. You may become motivated again at some point but now is your time to enjoy things as they are in your life and cultivate your next chapter. I actually much prefer your life now to when you were continually worried about what you were going to do with your life.

Randall: I like how you think.

Interviewer: Thank you Randall. I like how you think also.

Randall: Well I suppose we should put away the pen and paper and go get dressed now.

Interviewer: Sounds good.

A Short Essay On Why I Write.

I don’t know.

I Am No Tolstoy

I am no Tolstoy. This I know. I have been trying to become a man of letters for many years. All I have to show for it are a few published short stories, a back-breaking book collection, numerous unfinished novels and a reoccurring day-dream.

I am ready for winter to dissolve away. I have had enough of its cold hands, intimidating winds and wet rains. I have been spending a lot of self-demeaning time alone thinking about my inability to achieve the status of a great writer. For reasons that I still do not understand, Tolstoy often comes into my mind. I contemplate Tolstoy’s genius while taking a shower, while making lunch, while stretching, while meditating, while driving and while staring at my complexion in the mirror. I am not obsessed with Tolstoy but he is often creeping around in the penetralias of my mind. “Tolstoy was a master of resolution and maybe this is why his entire country loved reading him,” I often think to myself as if I am trying to compare his literary success to my lack of literary success. You see, Tolstoy was read by almost every single one of his countrymen and women but I have only one consistent reader of my stories- my wide-eyed wife (who usually falls asleep before she gets to the end). While looking at myself in the mirror I silently think, “If my only reader is falling asleep before finishing my stories maybe this is the reason why they end up unfinished and buried alive in the bottom drawer of my desk.” It’s always easier to have someone else to blame for our own shortcomings.

Tolstoy’s wife read his writings with the passion of a biblical scholar. She was in love with his writings. She inspired him to get out of bed in the mornings and she even dedicated her life to typing up his messy hand written manuscripts. At one point in Tolstoy’s life she was so worn out from not sleeping for months on end because of her dedication to her husband’s writings- that she was hospitalized for a month. Tolstoy often used to say that his greatness was only half his. The other half belonged to his wife. One of the most depressed periods of Tolstoy’s life was when his wife was hospitalized and he was home alone, trapped inside his own mind. “I thought myself a failure, a hack writer, unable to produce any profound themes that mattered,” he once said commenting about this period of his life.

I often give a new story that I have written to my wide-eyed wife to read. Granted, I married a beautiful women who is not as passionate about literature as I am- but does this compensate for the look of distress that comes over her wide-eyed face when I hand her something to read that I wrote? My wide-eyed wife prefers to “read my stories in bed,” where she feels more “attentive and calm” (and has the extra added benefit of my story helping her to fall into a deep beauty sleep). My wide-eyed wife never really says anything to me about my stories (because I do not think she every really finished reading one). Sometimes when I want feed back on what she has read I will ask her but she always gives me unenthusiastic five or less word responses and tells me that she needs more time to think about it. “It” was not always this bad.

When my beautiful wide-eyed wife and I first met she loved what I wrote (well she never really read anything that I wrote, but she loved the inspired explanations that I would give to her about the stories that I wrote). She often told me that she fell in love with me because I reminded her of Jack Kerouac and she often liked to refer to me as “the next great bohemian.”  I was so flattered by being compared to Jack Kerouac that I ignored the signs. I should have been more alert to the fact that I never saw her with a book in her hand and that she was not expressing any interest in reading anything that I had written. But I was too absent-minded most of the time. My judgment was clouded by the large amounts of poetry that I was memorizing and the fact that a young wide-eyed beauty was in love with me made me disregard my concern that she did not read.

Almost a decade has passed since those early days and I am still struggling to shine in that Jack Kerouac light, which for my wide-eyed wife has turned dark. Jack Kerouac has become a romantic bum to her and she no longer wants a husband that shines in his image. She wants an industrious man, someone who is able to buy a home, work hard and support a child or two if one happened to pop out. An aging Jack Kerouac with unmaterialized dreams is no longer the kind of man she needs.

Tolstoy’s wife completed the entire manuscript of War And Peace. She edited it, and typed it twice! When I was telling my wide-eyed wife about this she looked at me and said, “Well, you are no Tolstoy.” “I beg your pardon,” I replied with a microcosmic measure of disdain in my voice. “Well it’s true….. you have never really written anything significant,” she replied. I had to control my anger which was jumping around inside of me like popcorn in a microwave. I took a deep breath and calmly replied, “but what about all those stories I have given you to read that you have never read or finished?” “I have read them and they are good and interesting but why haven’t you tried to get them published? Why don’t you make a commitment to writing every day, and if you want to be a great writer why are you almost forty and have not finished a single novel? I mean get real man!” I clenched my jaw and wanted to shine the Jack Kerouac light down on me but the light was out of batteries. I wanted to tell her that the reason “why” I have not written a novel was because she never even showed any interest in my five-page short stories…. “It is all your fault…..” I wanted to yell…… “There is no greater insult to a writer then when you use his stories to fall asleep…..” I wanted to say that the reason I am no Tolstoy is because she shows very little interest in my work and a writer is only as great as the woman who is inspiring and pushing him!!! But I said nothing because of my grandmother who always told me that if you have nothing good to say then do not say anything at all.

Upon receiving one of the highest honors that a country can bestow upon a writer, Tolstoy said to the upper class audience “I would not be here if it was not for my wife.” When I think about this I often fall into a daydream of sorts. I imagine myself receiving an award for a short story or a novel that I finally published. Maybe it is the Pulitzer. In my daydream I have become the great writer that I have always imagined myself to be. Instead of thanking my wife-eyed wife and family I simply looked out into the crowd and say “being a writer is a long and lonely journey and I could not of done this without my self-determination and a lot of endurance.” The audience claps and my wide-eyed wife and my family look puzzled. “Why did I not thank them?” I know they are wondering. As I walk off stage I look at them and my eyes are filled with the pride of a just revenge. “That was for the years of neglect and for falling asleep while reading my stories,” I think to myself before disappearing behind a satin curtain towards all of my adoring fans. When I awake from my daydream I am always inspired with a new desire to write. I start thinking up ideas and opening sentences for the novel I want to write. I sit down with a pen and a blank page at my book covered desk and begin writing my epic until I hear the words of my wide-eyed wife lingering in the back of my mind, “You are no Tolstoy. Get real man!” Then I put the pen down and take the dog for a walk.

I Am Not Franz Kafka?

All through out my twenties I thought I was Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883- June 3, 1924). He was skinny, tall, introverted, alienated, intellectual, dark-skinned, well dressed, nervous, dramatic and Jewish. So was I. Kafka had a deep longing to be a writer and so did I. He loved literature, his sister, women, exercise and hated his job- just like I did. Kafka had a father, Hermann Kafka (1852-1931), who was a huge, dominating, worldly, loud, overbearing, oppressive and successful business man- just like mine. Kafka wrote “Letter To His Father” in which he spoke of being profoundly affected, both physically and psychologically, by his father’s authoritative and demanding character. I could have written the exact same letter to my father and I often did (I would copy Kafka’s letter and put some sentences in my own words and then mail a shorter version of “Brief an den Vader” to my father). So many things seemed to indicate to me that Kafka was just like I or I was just like him. I deeply related to his short stories and read and re-read his novels America, The Trial and The Castle. His novella, “The Metamorphosis” felt like the perfect metaphor for my life.

One of the difficulties of aging is that as years pass one begins to realize the misguided thinking of ones youth. One sees how much of their behavior was a fervid rebellion or unorganized folly against parents, orthodoxy and attempts to control- no matter how much one thought their behavior was authentic, ideological and revolutionary at the time. The joys of youth are hidden in its naivety, in youth’s ignorance of the root cause of behavior (I miss those days). As I have traveled through my thirties and am nearing my forties (shedding some of the anger and idealisms of my youth) I am beginning to realize that I am not like Kafka at all. At least I don’t think so. On the 18th of June 1906, Franz Kafka received his Doctorate of Law. He went to work for a large Italian insurance company where he worked for a year before quitting. Then he found a job with Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia where he worked for the next fourteen years of his life. I have never worked this long at any job with such uncompromising dedication as Kafka- nor would I want to. Kafka was a diligent and reliable employee although he often complained that he “despised the job.” His father often referred to his son’s career choice as “Brotberuf,” literally meaning “bread job,” a job done only to pay the bills. I would never want to imagine living like this.

I am not a Zionist. I have difficulty relating to those who are. It is not clear if Franz Kafka was a Zionist (I think he was) even though he sympathized with the Jews whom he thought deserved a homeland in Palestine. I have very little sympathy for Israel whose government and military is committing and has been committing for years daily human rights violations against the Palestinian people. Kafka would certainly not condone Israels current militaristic behavior but we would certainly have differing opinions about the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the Jewish diaspora- were Kafka alive today. Even though there is not a lot of “Jewishness” in Kafka’s literary work- Kafka was very interested in Yiddish Theatre and Yiddish Literature, whereas I find these two art forms incredibly dull. Judaism does not appeal to me as it did to Kafka. Kafka read the Talmud daily and the few times that I have tried to read the Talmud I have fallen asleep.

Kafka was a very spiritual man and so am I. However, Kafka’s spirituality was very philosophical whereas mine is metaphysical, almost verging upon the new age. Gustav Janouch, who would often visit Kafka at work and then record the things that they talked about (which was later published as the book “Conversations With Kafka”) said that Kafka was a saint dressed in businessman clothes. Kafka often spoke about the virtues of patience. I have a tendency to be impatient. I have always wanted what I want now but Kafka once said, “Patience is the master-key to every situation. One must have sympathy for everything, surrender to everything, but at the same time remain patient and forbearing.” Kafka was simply talking about the Buddhist idea of “letting go and being in the moment.” Unlike Kafka, who is said to have been a master of being in the moment, I am almost incapable of spending more than a minute or two in the “now.”

Kafka once said to Gustav while they where on a crystalline autumn day walk, “there is no such thing as bending or breaking. It is a question only of overcoming, which begins with overcoming oneself. That cannot be avoided. To abandon the path is always to break into pieces. One must patiently accept everything and let it grow within oneself. The barriers of the fear-ridden can only be broken by love. One must, in the dead leaves that rustle around one, already see the young, fresh green of spring, and wait. Patience is the true foundation on which to make one’s dreams come true.” I happen to completely agree with this sentiment. I often practice this way of being myself and talk about it with others. The major difference between Kafka and I is that when I say something like this to people they look confused or take me for a new age freak. But when Kafka said the exact same thing- it gets recorded and written down in a book! I am not complaining, nor am I jealous of Kafka- I just recognize that Kafka and I obviously have very different ways of enunciating and expressing our ideas.

I have always enjoyed working nights or staying up late into the night. It is strange to me that Kafka would say something like, “working at night is very bad for one’s health. And besides you tear yourself out of the human community. The night side of life becomes the day-side for you, and what is day for other men changes into a dream for you.” I find this strange because I know that Kafka would often return home from work at three or four in the afternoon, take a nap, eat dinner and then write until late in the evening. He had to be at work before the sun came up, six days a week, and he would very often only sleep two or three hours a night because he would stay up slaving away at his stories or novels. I myself often work as a waiter when I cannot find any other way to make economic ends meet (also one benefit to working as a waiter is that I can have my days free to write, paint, read or do whatever I want). I enjoy the nighttime hours that allow me to feel separate from the normalized nine to five “human community.” A writer is often an outsider anyways- and my work as a waiter often confirms my outsider status. Kafka may disagree with my chosen line of work and tell me that I am selling myself short or that it is bad for my health to work late into the night- but I could easily turn the situation around and call him a hypocrite.

No, I am not Kafka. Sure, if someone compared our biographies they would find superficial similarities. Kafka was a health nut and so am I. Kafka was continually dependent on and exhausted by his fathers support, so am I. Kafka had issues with sex, intimacy and choosing between the writing life and the domestic life- so do I. Kafka liked to draw, so do I. Kafka prayed, I meditate. Kafka loved the streets, palaces, gardens and churches of the city where he was born and I love the rolling hills, smells, trees and avenues of the city where I grew up. Kafka was too shy and reserved for friendship and sometimes I think I am as well. Kafka talked about the coming age where the world would be populated with robots, catastrophe, bureaucracy and “chains that can not be broken because there are no chains that can be seen.” I am living in this age. Several years before the holocaust occurred Kafka said “we live in a morass of corroding lies and illusions, in which terrible and monstrous things happen, which journalists report with amused objectivity and thus- without anyone noticing- trample on the lives of millions of people as if they were worthless insects (Fox News comes immediately to mind).” I feel like the same thing could be said about the world in which I currently reside. But even with all these similarities between Kafka and I- I am no Franz Kafka.

“Man does not grow from below upwards but from within outwards. This is a fundamental condition of all freedom in life,” Kafka said to Gustave one day as he was buried in paperwork that was stacked up in piles on his desk. The room in which Kafka worked was filled with rows of desks and Gustav sat in a chair besides Kafka’s desk listening to him talk. “It is not an artificially constructed social environment but an attitude to oneself and to the world, which it is a perpetual struggle to maintain. It is the condition of man’s freedom.” Gustave could not help but think that Kafka could be an enlightened being hidden away in the machinations of the bureaucratic work-a-day world. I myself need to find an “ordinary” job so that I can afford some financial security in my life. Like Kafka’s dreams, my dreams of being a writer have not quite worked out and lately, I have been realizing how much my consciousness or my thoughts determines the reality that I experience. I am starting to get glimpses of how it is my attitude or way of perceiving that creates my reality. As much as my intellectual mind wants to disregard this spiritual truth- I am starting to understand how this is really works. But still- this does not make me Franz Kafka.

Through out my twenties I never saw Kafka as a guru or a beholder of deep spiritual wisdom. Now I do. Instead I saw him as an existentialist- a victim of a society that constantly tried to tear him away from his art. I related to Kafka’s struggle against his father and his constant attempts to be taken seriously as a writer by his family, friends and the surrounding world in which he lived. Kafka only had a few short stories published in his lifetime and was virtually unknown as a writer and human being. Kafka would often go to soirees or intellectual gatherings and read his stories out loud to those few people who were willing to listen. I, on the other hand, keep a blog in which I write stories and essays for the few people who are willing to read my work. Kafka struggled to balance his literary aspirations with his career, his parents and his relationships with women- I do the same. Without question- Kafka suffered and struggled through out his life to create the body of literature, which is now known as some of the greatest writings of the twentieth century. Even though he demanded that all his work be burned upon the time of his death- his friend Max Brod ignored this final wish upon realizing how great his writings really were. I myself would never want my work destroyed after my death and I have every intention of being a well-respected writer long before I am gone.

I am not Kafka? No I am not. The more I write the more I become more aware of the naivety or mistaken thinking in my twenties. Maybe one might disagree with this because the superficial similarities between Kafka and I outweigh the differences. Kafka slept with his window open, and so do I. Kafka believed in the power of prayer and so do I. Kafka tried hard to please his father often sacrificing his true self- so do I. Maybe I am Kafka and maybe I am not- but it is pretty clear to me that I am not. Above my desk hangs a picture of Kafka and a quote from Kafka that I read every day. It brings me comfort and validation to know that someone from the distant past understood the truths that I believe in today. The quote says, “Just be quiet and patient. Let evil and unpleasantness pass quietly over you. Do not try to avoid them. On the contrary, observe them carefully. Let active understanding take the place of reflex irritation, and you will grow out of your trouble. Men can achieve greatness only by surmounting their own littleness.” After reading this I always take a deep breath, hold it and think, no I am definitely not Franz Kafka. Then I exhale.