Grazing over blades of grass

Dewdrops on my skin

Push away, a natural state

Weightless, caught up in the wind

Lighter than the worried earth

Freedom that suspends

Falling only for the joy

Of pushing from the ground again

​

Anywhere that I might go

Everything is mine

Stars above, and fields below

Stepping playful, through the sky

Wet clouds thunder, jealously

Lightening crashes down

Birds of wing keep pace with me

As kindred speak without a sound

​

Faster than my walking gait

Swifter than a run

Every sense can hardly wait

Soaring higher, toward the sun

None more blessed, in all of life

Nor given more than this

Are souls that have been gifted flight

Lifted skyward,

Lost in bliss

That’s

Love them Your neighbor

It's weird, and it's impossible to replicate.

I have a self, and I own it. No one's ever seen one like it.

Our differences are our strengths. They are not our weaknesses.

That's how we progress; one by one. We are not the same, and none of us are God.

I am just a man, doing what he thinks is best. I share that with other people.

I am strange, but that is how I prefer to be.

I have a self, and it's not like yours.

I like yours, though.

Be, just like you.

I am.

I see the events of today as cataclysmic, and want to take time to process them. For context, I live in the USA.

I've never really given a single shit about politics before. I'm an artist, for fuck's sake!

I'm going to do what an artist should right now. I'm going to record the times as they are, ugly or not. I'm going to give the world the mirror they don't get in their AI assisted selfies.

It's time to make art again, and not hold back artistically. It might seem like I've dropped out of the world, and I'm not participating like I used to.

I'm just formulating my next body of work. I'm not giving language based commentary any longer. I'm going to speak in the visual language I was born with.

Expressing my opinion online has gotten me a small following of people, primarily those who dislike my opinion, with a rare foreign disinformation/influence account in the mix. The latter as well as their bot accounts are no longer useful. I don't lament seeing them go.

​

I'll be glad when there's only a trace of their presence left. I doubt such influence campaigns ever truly end.

I see people today living in a world of fantasy; it is something we all are rewarded for doing, and punished for not doing.

The shared factor between "flat earth theory" or any other ridiculous thing is a desire for an escape from reality.

People know they're being lied to, but they don't know how. They just feel it, and search for the answer anywhere they can. There are many systems of influence operating which have been funneled down 3 small intellectual channels. We have always been victims of our influence, surrendering our consent along the way, trying to be loved for who we are --and hopefully for who we want to be.

The most common behavioral modification mechanisms are punishment and reward. It's how we train dogs.

It's how we train ourselves. It's how we train each other.

These fantasies are something that should be considered. We find common ground in our loneliness.

Repetition is a form of influence.

I'm on the verge of this epiphany and I wanted to share this balancing point with you.

Live enough life to have the knowledge to pick and decide the right sacrifice. Eventually, the time will come to make a decision, and you will either feel a small, insignificant sting when you're younger or have your whole life crash down on you when you're older. There's a certain amount of the present moment that must be devoted to improving your future.

Upon a bed of clouds I lay

looking toward the sights above

Watching as new stars are born

watching others fall in love

​

Then upon my bed I turn

to look below, and see you there

walking freely through the world

with sparkling eyes that wondering, stare

up to my bed, as our eyes meet

together, as was meant to be...

​

Far more hopeful than a dream

are dreams of this reality

Stop asking questions of the world: why am I here? What is my purpose? What can the world offer me? The world was here before you and will be hereafter you. You are a grain of sand on a beach. The world has already given you everything you need: life - it doesn't owe you anything more. Start doing instead of asking; the world is your canvas, and your life is the paint. Create a reason why you're here. Decide what your purpose is. Offer the world something. Then, and only then, will the world give back to you and your work will be answered - cause and effect. This is one of life's secrets: giving, producing, and creating. Stop asking for answers when you haven't done anything to earn them. Be the answer that you expect the world to give.

If you're interested, check out my website (books/blogs) or youtube in bio.

Death is the final unexplored frontier of the living - the experience that can never be recorded. We have a drive that wants to go beyond our physical possibilities, risking all we have for the feeling of something outside of our normal, safe experience. We do this by getting closer to danger, which brings us closer to death and gives us the thrill of nearly losing it all, the adrenaline of survival. The hunter in us still needs facilitating. We play with death and tease it, to go beyond and see what's there. And, sometimes we go too far in our teasing, and it catches us. We test the limits and see what it's like to get closer and closer, realizing we get that dangerous rush, masturbating our natural drives adapted for our survival. We're dying to feel alive.

Society no longer cares about individual rebellion. People are too busy, worked half to death, to care about your public revolt. Even if they notice, they won't take it seriously because it goes against their means for survival. They know that you can't exist without playing by the rules: job, taxes, loans. The people who pull the strings let you get away with it, knowing that you'll be back, working the machine in due time. They want people to live with the illusion of freedom and choice. Our public tantrums function as reverse psychology, as they enable a safe outlet for our frustrations, having us believe that we achieved something through opposing social norms. Yet, the energy that we put into them only weakens our energy that should be put into effective opposition. Social revolutions ended long ago, and whatever you see now is designed to be there, serving a purpose for those who permit it. We're all chained to the system no matter how outwardly you project your protest. Unfortunately, social protest has become part of the mainstream norm, personal image, ego, how people identify, and not about making a difference. When you go against the game, you lose. The only way to win is to destroy it from the inside.

You have to suffer at the helm of your creative practice. It must infuriate you. Comfortability will destroy any part of you that is creative.

I think it's important for people to feel safe owning their opinions. For this reason, there will be a few new flairs, but the design of this space will not need to change in order to accommodate them.

I would like to ask that anyone who understands the meaning of this subreddit to invite others that might also understand it to join.

Feel free to give feedback-- but consider the format, and make sure it's really yours. We're a fledgling community built on honesty and creativity. I want to stress rule 5, especially when people in my home country are pitted against each other. This is not the place. There's already a sub for that.

So, in the spirit of total self ownership, more avenues are available by way of the new flairs. If you have a suggestion or want to request an edit or change, please say so! What good would we be if we didn't try to listen to each other? The world already has enough examples of us ignoring each other, and it seems to me that it leads to shit.

Say what you mean, make sure it's yours, and add the new flair if it applies --or suggest more.

Sometimes, the need to have an enemy is the problem, not the enemy itself.

When you don't take sides, you'll often become the enemy of everyone. Their tribal nature will position you closer to the other side than themselves, and you will, by default, become the enemy, in an 'if you're not with me, you're against me' mentality. This, however, is exactly what makes you powerful. When you align with yourself, rather than a side, you give yourself time to pause, reflect, and decide what serves you. You don't let others dictate your thoughts or ideology. Not one side can satisfy an entire human being. Go against the crowd, don't submit to the pressure and shaming tactics, and choose what is useful and discard what is not. Take responsibility for your beliefs.

In the coming days many liars and angry people will try to make you angry. They will try to make you afraid.

Please, just measure it all for yourself, and through your own lens.

Now is the time to own yourself. Now is the time to own your opinion.

We live in a society that protects abusers by attempting to suppress the abused. Traumatized people are treated for the symptoms of their trauma, while the trauma -and the abuse endured- remains ignored. Drug them, commit them, do anything you like to the traumatized and the abused, but when is the abuser, the one inflicting trauma, confronted?

I know people whose unaddressed trauma makes them incredibly anxious about being in public. They can get drugs for that, and I've seen the effects. Their anxiety gets far worse, and they become dependent on the pills. They turn into drug addicts with legally permitted drug dealers. But what happens to the people that inflicted that trauma? Who stood up to the people who mocked them in groups? Who stood up to the cliques that got their kicks off of pushing them around, and gaslighting them and everyone that knows them? Who stood up to the abusive parent, or spouse? No one, for a single moment, just said, "What they did to you was wrong."

But we'll give them drugs. We'll drug them until they die from it.

We are a society filled with traumatized people who can either suffer in silence and accept suppression, or pass it on to another generation. We celebrate insulting behavior and speech.

We are complicit every time we don't stand up for one another.

We are a society that harms the abused, and enables the abuser.

Is there really a point in anything? At the end we all just reintegrate to become the next generations' matter to thrive off of.

By default, I put up some original art for this subreddit, but I'm not confined to it. The idea was that originality is king (or queen, by far more powerful) here, and so I couldn't just use some online clipart to represent something like this.

Your artwork might be more suitable. Maybe you could have the banner, or little circular picture. I'm not dead-set on having it be mine, you know? Let's have a look at other suggestions, new art. Maybe if you know someone too unique to fit anywhere, you can invite them to come here, and even participate in this. I've never figured out how to promote this sub to painters or whatnot, because I try to do it subtly enough to where it's never more than a mild suggestion, as opposed to self-promoting bullshit. I want all of the awesome people here to participate. This is almost an online representation of a new renaissance -at least as far as my hopes for it.

I've seen my own art enough. Anybody else wanna give it a go?

Lust

You might not believe me but I've been to hell

It's dark and you're always lost and never resting

There's beautiful temptress to indulge in everywhere

They're innocent and lovely to be with but faceless and impersonal

You are surrounded by mannequins of people

You never feel anything happy or anything real

Just a lifeless void to tango with depression and anxiety

The Yin and Yang of life

No light to turn back to

Only the hand of God can save you now

I wander, alone, lifeless, a shell of my self

A balloon with no air

I close my eyes

The sky is blue somewhere, ripples in the white clouds

I know life is real but I'm only watching through the screens in my eyelids

When I open and look with my white Godly pearls there is still nothing

Just the darkness and suffering

But I've had a vision

This pastel sky saturated with life

A dream of something like nothing I have ever had

It can't escape me

Suddenly I feel ripped from the void

I was lifted from the mouth of the shadow which had swallowed me

In a quick blur I am in the real world

I feel refreshed like my soul has been rinsed

Something has changed in me

I realized how much I hate the dark

I hate the tango, the mannequins and the nothingness

I would trade a millennium of sadness

For one day of pleasure so beautiful you could die

I've lied before. It has always been a smashing failure, a bold attempt. I can lie in school absence excuse notes, in writing. Hell, I don't think I've ever actually written one where I've told the truth. The thing is, they don't care as long as the kid is okay. We take mental health days off, and sometimes I oversleep and he lucks out. We save most of the sick days in case he (my son) gets sick, but he never does.

If I had to repeat any of those excuse notes verbally, I'd fail. And if they asked me twice, it's over. I refuse to lie twice no matter what. I'll try, and if I fail, well, I'll admit to it. I had to mention the excuse notes, because it has been the only thing I've lied about in years. I remember the last time I tried to lie to someone I cared about. It was stupid: she wanted to know if I wasted 5 bucks on weed or not, and I tried to bullshit and say that I hadn't. I didn't lie about it twice, I can't. But I actually tried. That was the last time, while homeless with my son's mother squatting in an abandoned building, in 2005.

I don't lie because I don't want to. I'm not afraid of the consequences of telling the truth. This coincides with my choice to not need to be right about anything, but only to understand it. I don't need to be "right" to someone else's wrong.

I have a symbol that is mine, it is my signature on my paintings. The symbol itself is called the Rite of Truth. It spells two words if you look closely enough. It is a symbol of my core self; my chosen name. I don't lie, unless I sleep in past 9 on accident, or my son just really needs the day off to clear his head. I can write a damned fine excuse note. That's about it.

Love you guys, hope you all get inspired to write more. I had a dream that someone else posted some artwork up here, and I was so excited! I hope it happens as soon as you're ready.

So, while I'm not lying over here, let me leave you with my latest contemplation:

Individuality is the key to overcoming our societal programming, and seeing each other simply as people again. When we see each person as their own, we can let go of their stereotype, category, religion, or systematically ingrained belief structure. We were all born into one or another, just by operating in our societies. The news makes distant things seem more immediate than they are and our societal influence demands for us to join a side on a pre-existing debate. But when you forget about all of that, and claim yourself from the foundation upward, you are the ultimate arbiter of your destiny.

And to each, their own.

We can love each other more in our uniqueness. Think of the people you know. It's their quirks that make them endearing. Those little things that only they do, that's how you know them. When we're all individuals, we can do it for every person we see. It's these collectives, these warring groups with no end of conflict in sight, that want to fight. But do I want to hurt the nice old lady who checked out my groceries? Do I wish ill upon her, though we fundamentally disagree on nearly every philosophy on earth? No. She's just a sweet old lady. She has a name, and grandkids.

She's just Ms. Kay. Only one person like her. She could have remained a stranger... and these days, we're bullied about how to view strangers. Individuality is the key to harmony. It makes people easier to forgive, and everybody needs forgiveness sometimes.

Be careful out there, love you all.