The Way...

They told me what the Dream was and they told me how to attain it. The way they talked, it was as if it was a map that could be followed from Point A to Point B. Foolproof. They only told me, though. They never showed me. I wondered about that for a bit, but the answer came quick. You can't show someone something you don't have. Nevertheless, I wrote down the way and I stuffed the paper in my pocket for another day.

After a couple years and some careful consideration, the destination looked good, but I didn't like the map. So I set it on fire and took off running through the streets, a general picture of the destination in my head and determination in my chest. I ran through traffic and dodged cars. I jumped fences, violated borders. I entertained the company of any path that seemed like a shortcut. I ran fast and I ran hard. My heart beat in my ears and my lungs burned in my throat. My eyes watered from the wind and my legs screamed for me to stop. But I had burned the map and intensity was the only way to make up the time lost to a poor sense of direction. I ran fast and I ran hard and I don't remember a single thing about the trip. But eventually I ended up exactly where they said I was supposed to be.

I had achieved the American Dream. I walked around in that place for awhile. It was pretty empty and the people that did inhabit reminded me of the zombies I had seen on TV. Cycles. That's all they had. Cycles and secondary experience. Everything looked the same. Their wasn't much virtue aside from the firm belief in assumptions based on other assumptions. And when I looked really close, everything was built on quicksand.

I once had the American Dream. But I gave it back. My own dreams are way fucking brighter. So are yours. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Death's Door

These are not new ideas. Every human being alive or dead (and even a few zombies) knows everything I'm about to say intrinsically. This is just my spin on it. St. Francis once said (and it has been repeated millions of times by millions of people around the world) that:

It is in dying to the self,

That we are born into eternal life

I've contemplated these words for many years and found various and sundry ways to relate to them. But I think, on a frantic bike ride through South Glendale in the middle of a 109 degree afternoon (Fahrenheit not Celsius you commies) the Gods of Heat Stroke and Delirium bequeathed to me the most practical understanding I've ever had. The words are obviously a metaphor. St. Francis wasn't a Heaven's Gate type of character. Although one could make a pretty sound argument that he stood just a little bit that side of nutso.

Everybody knows that death is just some kind of veil that we can't see beyond. No matter what your religious beliefs or ideology, everyone can agree that beyond death, there is something. And in this case, I even include nothing in the category of something. It doesn't matter to me. And this isn't meant to draw up that debate. Imagine that you're standing before a house inside of which you've never been. The front door is closed. You have no idea what the inside looks like, but you know that there is something inside, even if it's rubble, or an interior recently decorated by the design heroes from Trading Spaces, or stacks of newspapers held sturdy by cat shit mortar produced by an army of live-in cat shit mortar producing feline architects. I only paint that picture for you because I've been in houses like that. I don't want to get off topic too much, but if you have relatives that have said good-bye to the world of reasonable use of space and have dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to collecting small mammals, garbage, and immobile, plantlike mystery organisms that seem to spontaneously erupt on the walls, floor, and ceiling, please intervene before they start having chest pain at 3 in the morning, for the sake of the people that have to come get them out of their house and take them to the hospital. No one wants to be crushed to death by an 1800 lb. stack of grocery store coupons from 1984... especially with that smell in their nose. Anyway, death is like that (the first thing, not the hoarders thing). It's just a door you can't see beyond because you haven't tried to turn the knob and no one has invited you in... yet. Don't worry. We all get to go inside someday. Most of us don't even bother to look in the window next to the door to sneak a peek. The curtains are always open. But no one wants to be that weirdo whose head pops up from the bottom corner of the window with a stupid, searching look on their face.

Death is what most of us fear, correct?

I firmly believe that St. Francis's words were meant for the living (and those few undead lucky enough to comprehend the idiosyncrasies of human existence). And so all this talk about death to the self... pretty morbid, right? Wrong sucker. It is one of the most essential lessons we could possibly take to heart. It's about living. That's why there's the second part. The promise of some great reward if we just challenge death. It has been said that past the point of exhaustion, we find freedom. How many have ever hit the wall and pushed and pushed, dug deeper to find something, anything to keep us going? Very few. Be honest with yourself. But it is just like the door to death. We don't know what's on the other side. St. Francis's words are that window next to the door. Beyond exhaustion, freedom. There comes a point where the pain stops and something miraculous begins to happen. Growth. You find that you are made of more than you ever imagined. You discover that you are limitless. You turn to see that you didn't just open that door, you kicked it clean off the hinges. It will remain open and you may now pass freely.

But getting to that point is no picnic. Every step you take toward and through exhaustion becomes exponentially heavier. The weight of the entire world is pressing upon you. Everything you've been told you couldn't do, everything you've convinced yourself was unpleasant or painful, every paradigm of negativity in your mind will be pushing you to stop. But somehow, you must have a reason to go on. There must be something, just one thing that drives you to choose death over defeat (don't worry, you probably won't actually die). Because once you've sincerely decided in favor of death over defeat, the only possible outcome is for that door to get kicked in. If you persevere, someday you'll find yourself unstoppable, discover that what you truly are radiates outward eternally. I have only seen one thing in this world powerful enough to motivate that kind of change. Well two things. But they go hand in hand. Love and compassion. And it's probably because love and a competitive nature are only separated by a very fine line. One of them is obviously a higher ideal. Guess which one? Learning to love makes you a stronger competitor, when necessary. Whereas learning to compete doesn't make you adept at loving. When you face this metaphorical death, or we'll call it the "Monster of Your Dissenting Mind" or we can just call it a bit of profound discomfort, it does you no good to hate it and try to compete with it, to beat it for selfish reasons. You have to learn to love it and be motivated by something greater than yourself to overcome, be it family, service to others, or the reward of a double chocolate chip, vanilla ice cream pizookie at the end of the day. You have to learn to recognize the discomfort and associate with the end result. That growth. That completeness. The actual purpose of your existence (mystery solved). You have to be waiting, prepared, weapons in hand for when that Monster comes rearing its ugly head, you have to revel in its appearance, and then for it's own good and with love in your heart, you have to subdue it. And I think that's what St. Francis was talking about. In my own simpler, more practical language:

Quit being a giant pussy,

Stop resting on your wilted laurels,

Intentionally do something that isn't pleasant,

And evolve into a more complete human being than you are.

There are hundreds and thousands of people out there who will tell you that any discomfort you feel, any fright, any pain, is repaid ten fold if you just resolve to carry it for only as long as is absolutely necessary on your way to where you're going. It's a pretty simple concept, but not easy to do. Take stock of everything inside of you. Be brutally honest about the components that make you who you are. Identify anything that is unnecessary or worthless. Then trim it away like a butcher does rotted meat. Or if you want a more flower metaphor, chip away at the stone, the was sculptor does to reveal the composition of beauty that was always living inside that lifeless block of rock. I like the rotted meat thing better. It takes a tremendous amount of artistry and precision to do this well. But human beings have an intrinsic capacity for change. We just seem to forget. Often.

This one is specifically dedicated to my family. You're all being put on notice. Something's gotta change soon. There isn't one among us that doesn't have something big we need to tackle, address, repair, or change. Figure out what it is, and get to work. Otherwise we just perpetuate the patterns of the past indefinitely. How boring! And I'm not just pointing fingers. I include myself in all of this.

Invader at the Gates

A number of years ago I made the acquaintance of a gentlemen who later married and infiltrated my sister's uterus to make this thing. He's now 1 year old:

And here's one more picture of him simulating what he looked like when he was still living in the amniotic sac.  It was his idea.  We couldn't figure out a way to replicate the fluid, but you get the idea:

Searching through my computer I found a message I pinned to my front door for a couple weeks before the arrival of Stave (phonetic spelling).  It served its purpose.  No one was injured.  It is reprinted here in its entirety for your enjoyment.  Much of the humor is topical, so try and transport yourself back to a simpler time, a happier time, 2007.

I feel obligated, for the safety of all individuals concerned, to inform you that we will be having a new (foreign) houseguest residing with us for an extended period of time.  When you enter the house, presumably without knocking, do so carefully and without making any sudden movements.  When you walk into the living room you may be startled by a very rare specimen known only to the western world as Australianicus Felattium.  This particular specimen is known as Steven.  He may or may not be wearing pants/underwear when you first meet him.  I assure you, it’s nothing personal.  Australians just don’t have parents.  They emerge from the ground like spores of mold.  So they are sometimes oblivious to some of the social mores and folkways that you and I might adhere to.

Keep in mind that Australia itself began as a penal colony.  This means that every single one of Australia’s citizens are convicted felons.  This is true because mold spores replicate with very little variation in their genetic makeup.  Certainly due to mutations there might be one or two in the bunch that isn’t a genetic criminal, but I wouldn’t be the one to test that theory.  So always, after an encounter with young Steven, check your wallet or purse, and make sure that you’re still wearing pants.  He’s like a ninja of pants thievery.  Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Also he has this thing where he insists that he’s not an Aussie, but a Kiwi.  He says he’s from New Zealand, not Australia.  My logic tells me that if you live in Australia and have an Australian accent, then you’re probably Australian.  Feel free to debate Steven on this issue.

Finally, avoid being alone with Steven at all costs.  But if you do happen to find yourself alone, and he gives you that eerie silent stare, DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT.  To help in these situations, I’ve enclosed a list of appropriate questions and topics of conversation.  Please commit these to memory before entering the house.  It could save your life.

What’s the difference between a penile colony and a penal colony, and which one is Australia?

What’s the difference between a Kiwi and an Aussie and does anyone care?

Is it true that the primary food eaten in Australia is human babies?

Are you a wizard?

Are you a Fairy?

Who’s your favorite, Jermaine, Bret, or Murray?

What is the gross domestic product of Australia and how does this play into the politcoeconomic dynamic of the decline of the US Dollar?

Do tattoos hurt?

Why can’t you just talk like a normal person?

Is it true that all Australians are born both drunk and pregnant?

An Aboriginal friend of mine once said that all white people are the devil.  Please comment on this statement and use facts to support any assertions.

A recent news report said that Australians pee out of their butts.  Please demonstrate.

How does it feel to know that you belong to one of the only developed nations on the planet to have a weaker currency than the US?

Did you cause global warming?  Bastard.

Have you ever been bitten by a Dingo or ridden a Koala?

Where do babies come from?

There’s nothing good about what you do or who you are.  (This statement is to be made with squinted eyes and an accusational tone to the voice)

Are there toilets in Australia?  Then why do you smell like that?

Please describe, in your own words, the basic tenets of String Theory.  Be sure to address such quantum mechanical staples such as quarks, spin direction, and electron position in your analysis.  If you can’t do that, what do Australians think of Britney Spears?

Feel free to add your own questions to the list.  Remember, it could save a life.

To Whom It May Concern

Marx's Communist Manifesto had a ripple effect that, good or bad, has shaped the modern world in dramatic ways.  Various other authors have written works that have modified the social consciousness with a force that could never have been predicted.  Without such visionaries the world would be in more chaos than it is.  Teetering on the brink of destruction as we are, we would have gone over the edge decades ago had it not been for the revolutionary hearts and minds of many.  This is my manifesto.

Wordscraper, Words with Friends, Wordfeud and other offshoot bastardizations of the noble game of Scrabble are bullshit.

That's right.  Bullshit.  Even as I type these words, I can hear the voices of my extended family as they scream obscenities at me and disown me.  Many of my beloved friends and family members are avid participants in these games of lesser humans.  But it must end.  I am willing to endure the inevitable persecution for the truth.  It must be told, that we may evolve and carry on.  For with Wordscraper, we all perish.

In each of your hearts, you know that what I say is the truth.  It may pain you greatly, and the inclination will be to allow your ego to coddle you.  For as fallible humans, our ego dictates that we MUST be right, even if the truth says otherwise.  Aristotle died because of this.  Socrates was put to death.  Gandhi was assassinated.  But the truths they spoke live on.  And should death be brought to my doorstep, so help me God, this truth too, shall survive.

And here is why all those sub-Scrabble games are bullshit.

1.  You don't have to actually sit face to face with anyone.  How many more of our group activities are we going to relegate to sitting behind a computer screen.  I am suspicious of any situation where you can be playing a game with someone and in another window be looking up photos of chicks with dicks (Click it.  You know you want to.  You're making assumptions.  Go ahead and click it.  It's not what you think).  It would shock you how often this happens.  I've been compiling statistics.  Even as I write this I have a window open with a picture of a dog biting its own balls.  It's disrespectful to the game, the other person, yourself, and probably the earth.  But it's the inevitable consequence of anything done on the internet.  It's a distracting environment.  Scientists have proven that there is no human alive on earth today that can check their email without also watching an infomercial for pajamajeans or a video of a slow loris walking around doing slow loris things.  Imagine trying to stay focused while waiting for someone else to take their turn with nothing to do but sit and stare at a gameboard with a god awful color scheme and way too many bonus squares.  Even thinking about it makes me cringe.  Shit talking, misdirection, and psychological ploys are the heart and soul of a true game of Scrabble and require an actual opponent.  Yelling "You no good dirty poop eating word puker!" at your computer screen has little to no effect on a person on the other side of a broadband connection.  But yell that in someone's face and watch their heart melt with fear.  Computers are just robots without legs and robots are replacing everyone and it should be a red flag to us as humans.  Has no one seen the Terminator movies?  The first time I saw a self checkout in the grocery store I thought to myself, "Shit, somehow this is going to ruin Scrabble and eventually the world."

2.  Speaking of bonus squares, there are way too many of them on non-Scrabbles.  As mentioned before, the trickery of the human ego is strong.  And being able to get scores in the thousands because there are 47 quadruple word squares and they're 3 squares away from triple letter scores is not healthy.  It's giving people an overinflated sense of their ability.  Human beings need struggle to be fully human.  But these games are turning us into cattle.  Sheep for the slaughter.  Fish for the plucking.  Popplers for the eating.  It's a dire situation.  If we keep validating ourselves without an adequate effort, next thing you know we'll sacrifice all of our civil and basic rights because it's too hard to walk downtown and participate in a demonstration.  Plus, what if someone takes their turn while we're gone?  I know from experience the effects of this mental attitude.  I missed the Million Man March (I was a keynote speaker) because I was involved in a protracted game of Warcraft.  Not World of Warcraft you nerd.  The real Warcraft.

3.  Along with having a chicks with dicks window open, many people choose to have a Scrabble word generator (contrary to the website slogan, this is not conducive with winning) window open.  It doesn't matter if I'm your opponent, because my game is so complete, so perfect, that your digital crutches won't help you hobble on to victory.  At best you might stay within a hundred points of me for 5 turns.  But it's still ruining the sportsmanship, the rich heritage of honor and integrity once associated with Scrabble.  I know this to be a common practice because I have friends who I've never heard use a 3 syllable word in real life and often have a genuine look of being offended when someone else does.  And then they spell words on these bastardized game boards like "obeisance."  Again, bullshit.  It's not like you even need the word generator up.  That's just for those who are extra lazy.  Because the game won't accept any input that isn't an actual word.  You can just randomly fling letters about until some word happens that uses a bonus square that you had your eye on.  This is the modern equivalent of flinging poop at a wall just to see what sticks.  Which brings me sharply to my next point.

4.  There is no word challenge function.  This is probably 40% of what makes Scrabble Scrabble.  Most grown ups would admit that actions have consequences.  This is a concept lost on the youth as a direct result of these watered down Scrabble abominations.  Not having the ability to lay down farce words and not having the ability to challenge or to bait others to challenge when you use an unlikely but entirely legitimate word eliminates the entire psychological component of the game.  It is another dangerous trend in our country.  Less thinking, more mindless clicking.  Never having to read a Scrabble opponent puts you at a direct disadvantage when entering the job market.  It's not that the economy is down and unemployment is up.  It's just that college graduates are dumber.  Because of psuedo-Scrabbles.  No one wants to hire someone who has never mindf***ed anyone.  Every job, in the end, just boils down to sales.  And that's all about the mindf***.  Again, there's probably science to back up what I'm saying.  But I'm busy.  I can't check.  You check.

5.  This is sort of a continuation of the Scrabble word generator thing.  But it's worth mentioning again.  Quit hiding behind the fact that you can just make random combinations of letters until the computer accepts one.  Learn some skills.  Figure out how to make a good, strategic block.  Anticipate your opponent's next move.  And then screw them as hard as you can.  Follow it up by blowing in a conch shell.  A victorious conch bellow.  For the love of god people, learn the 2 letter words.  Here's a free lesson.  There are 101 acceptable two letter words in Scrabble.  There are none with the letter V or C.  You learned the alphabet when you were like 1.  You should be able to learn the "Words of Annihilation" as I am fond of referring to them.  They're only made up of letters you learned from the original alphabet.  There aren't any curveballs in there.  No umlauts.  No Chinese characters.  Just those same letters arranged into various sequences of 2.  Even if you're too lazy to memorize them, learn these ones.  They're raw power... xi, qi, za, and jo.  Those are high dollar letters.  I've gotten 62 points with them.  And if you want to add some credibility to your being at the most fundamental level, figure out what they mean.

6.  If nothing else, think of the tiles.  Remember back to the first time you played Scrabble with your parents or some kids from the neighborhood.  Remember the smell of the plastic grey bag, containing so much potential for wordsmithery.  You can almost feel the smooth rounded corners of the little letter squares, the slight groove of the engraved characters, painted white to contrast with the rich fake mahogany color of the tiles, or the black letters against the naked wood (yes, naked wood) if your parents wouldn't shell out the extra money for a deluxe board.  Then there's the sound of the click and tap as you lay down the letters, triumphantly spelling the word "gymnasts" on a triple word score.  You guys never had a chance.

Look, I know why you did it.  I understand the allure of convenience and luster of technology.  But there are some things that are our birthright as human beings.  And if we don't protect and preserve them, what will be left for our children?  Put your phones and mouses (mice? meese?) down.  The cost is far too high.

My nephew is choking on a tortilla chip.  So I should go.  Eh, viva la revolucion!  Seacrest, out.

What's in a Name? Rarely the Whole Story

And so what was the point of that previous, long, drawn out post about the woman in Africa?  The point, very plainly, was to put money into perspective.  This thing we have elevated to primary importance clearly has the ability to affect major consequences.  But what is it exactly?  Where does money come from?  What gives it value and what does it actually represent in our society?

Do a little experiment.  Ask these questions at your bank.  If anyone should have some intellectual understanding of money, it should be the people staffing the banks, correct?  I have yet to meet a single person at a bank who could even tell me who printed our nation's money.  Each had an "Oh yeah!" moment when the Federal Reserve was mentioned.  But to me, it seemed an insufficient level of basic financial knowledge for someone who had such a broad understanding of what credit cards I would qualify for, how they would benefit me, and how to sell me on applying for one.  I admit this is a mildly asshole-ish thing to do, but I have always done it with a smile and a good natured tone.  I tell every one of them that I will sign up for their card if they can tell me what gives money its value.  I still have 0 credit cards.

So where does money come from?  The Federal Reserve is the obvious answer.  They print our money on fancy cotton paper in a basically monochromatic scheme.  Why they haven't switched to some kind of plastic which can be washed, endures much greater abuse, and lasts longer, I don't know.  Why they haven't printed different denominations on different size paper to make it easier for the blind and the visually impaired to manage their cash, I don't know.  Why they don't print the money in different colors for similar reasons and ease of transaction, I don't know. (I have to begrudgingly admit that it was my Kiwi brother in law, who I incessantly berated for not being able to count money at the register, that brought all this money logistics stuff to my attention.)  Tradition, maybe.  I guess it doesn't really make a difference since less than 5% of all money in circulation is in printed cash form.  The rest is electronic or in other forms even more obscure.  But back to the matter at hand: The Federal Reserve.

It just makes cents.  Get it?

With a name like that, you would imagine that it would be some part of the national government.  But you would be wrong.  Don't worry.  All the bankers thought the same.  The Federal Reserve is a privately owned, corporate bank that lends money to the American Government at interest.  Feel free to read that again.  Every dollar in circulation, every dollar used to finance a road project or an international war, or a major corporate bailout is on loan and must be payed back to the Federal Reserve by the US Government.  But if there is interest, then the amount of money in circulation can not and never will be enough to satisfy the debt.  The only way to repay what's owed is to put more money in circulation which incurs more interest.  It's insane to think about.  It's circular logic to a destructive degree.  But it's an important concept to grasp.  Somehow, at some point in history, we privatized our money supply.  We made it a commercial endeavor for a few very rich, very powerful men.  I still don't know what to think about all this.  Well, I do.  But they aren't popular ideas.  Because they include totally whacked out goals like trying to simplify my consumer existence and reduce the amount of money necessary for daily existence.  In other words, my goal isn't to make a million dollars.  My goal is to find a way to never need a million dollars.  Stupid, I know.

There was a point in history when control over the nation's supply of money was guaranteed to the American people by The Constitution of the United States.  But that all ended when Woodrow Wilson took office.  There are various conspiracy theories surrounding the institution of the Federal Reserve.  Even though they do correlate with reality, I don't want this to become anymore conspiracy theory nutjobesque than it already is.  So I'll just tread water here on the surface.  Google the theories if you're interested.  They're pretty expansive.  Anyway, like many other major acts of government that seem to be in violation of our basic human and constitutional rights (Ahem! Federal income tax. Cough!) it seems as though due process was conveniently circumvented in the case of the Federal Reserve Act.  Rather than bitch about all that stuff that I can't really verify because I wasn't born and don't fully understand the legislative process, I'll just go ahead and print the words directly from the horse's mouth.  The horse had this to say about signing the Federal Reserve into existence:

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

If I may infer, it would seem as though President Wilson had some small regret over how it all went down.  I mean, I had to read between the lines.  But after some careful analysis, I was comfortable making the assumption that he didn't use the phrase "ruined my country" to mean a good thing.  It's worth noting that The Great Depression began just 8 years after the end of Wilson's presidency.  This led to the abandonment of the gold standard and our nation's almost pathological reliance on credit.

There are a few other questions that need to be answered.  What gives money it's value?  We used to have the gold standard.  That was done away with.  Even then we were an industrial nation with a strong GDP and good exports.  But we don't make anything anymore.  So from where could our money possibly derive it's value?  Another important question is how does that interest owed to the Fed get paid?  Intrinsically you know the answer.  You just don't know how simple and absolute the answer is.

This is just another in a laundry list of examples of how our power and autonomy is being diverted.  Just because the gears were set in motion before many of us were born doesn't mean we're not holding the wrench.  We can either toss it into the machine and bring it to a grinding halt or we can turn a few nuts and bolts and change the way it operates.  The third option is to allow it to run until every part of it has been so exploited that it breaks on it's own.  But by then it will be too late.  Simple reassembly will be impossible.  We'll have to start from scratch.

Answers to come... if you don't find them first before I get the chance to write again.  It gets worse.

Disclaimer: I want to be clear about something for individuals or organizations that may get the wrong idea about what I'm saying.  I am not anti-government.  I am not anti-corporate.  I am simply against the abuse of power.  I am a proponent of power-with rather than power-over.  Interdependence rather than dominance.

This is just a brief and incomplete synopsis.  As always, I encourage you to research more and broaden your understanding.  I'll try to be funnier next time.  It'll mitigate the shock.

Rock Smash Scissors Cut Paper Over Life

I can pinpoint the day my world was turned upside down. I haven't really been able to get it completely back together since. Maybe that impossible desire to restore order drives me a little bit.  I'm sharing this story because I know some of the things I plan to write about are a little unbelievable.  The truth sometimes is.  I'm hoping against hope that revealing a bit of the back story will prevent at least a few people from writing me off as a conspiracy whack job.

At a young age I can remember being taught in school about nebulous ideas like love and compassion. Teachers were able to define them very clearly, give examples, and make these things relatable. Movies, television, music and magazines covered this and similar concepts with confidence and authority (and probably a bit of an agenda). To my young mind, there was little mystery about the workings of the human heart. I was a sponge and so I absorbed everything that was advertised to me. I understood love. That is until my first girlfriend dumped me (Thanks Laura) and I realized the media was full of shit. But that isn't what this is about. The point is that commentary on love, only purporting to be truth, is all around us. This is particularly funny because love is completely intangible, even though it can certainly be felt. It's this incomprehensible force that emanates from whatever it is that makes us human. And we, in all of our ego, think we can define it, confine it, and market it. And even though in the empirical sense we can't, we never stop trying.

And then there's this very tangible thing that influences the daily decisions we make in a very real way, and even sometimes takes precedence over love. Anyone know what the leading causes of divorce are? Yet, this thing has never been defined. The media never addresses it. The school's don't educate the students about it. It is just considered too big of a thing to understand. And we just accept it as a foregone conclusion. All the while this thing plays us like puppets, rendering us predictable and controllable.

I remember sitting in Mr. Barsanti's AP Economics class wondering why we kept talking about supply and demand and market drives and blah blah blah when we had never ever defined what money was. We never identified where it came from or from where it derived its value. We never debated how or why it rose to central power in human life. I thought that was strange. But his class was usually 4th period right after lunch and I was never in a curious or motivated mood. The insulin spike that resulted from a my water polo season diet of pizza, snicker's bar, soda, and the legendary, never replicated Crispito ensured that I took naps rather than asked questions. And if I wasn't napping I spent hours and hours covering my arms with gel pen ink, foreshadowing my future career in the art world. After all that time in school, then through college, my questions about money were never addressed. I kept waiting for someone to spoon feed me the answer like they did when it came to differentials or quantum spin directions. But no one ever did. Eventually I realized that if I wanted an answer I would have to seek it out myself. I felt as if the education system had failed me. What a pain in the ass.

And that incomplete saga picked up somewhere around January 2008, several thousand miles from home...

I was touring the state hospital in Jinja, Uganda. The size of most hospitals can be conveyed by the number of beds they have or the number of doctors and nurses on staff. Not so in Uganda. I didn't see a single care provider the entire time I was at the hospital. And there were a few frames that could be loosely referred to as beds.  But most of the patients were scattered about on the cracked concrete floor in various stages of illness. Whatever beds there were, there weren't enough. And whatever load the hospital had been designed to handle, it had been exceeded both in the quantity and quality of illness.

It took quite an effort to get to East Africa and I had spent countless hours in airport terminals and train stations along the way. There's never much to do but sit there and wait. I couldn't help but make the comparison that for many of these people, this was the last terminal in which they would ever wait. Having just spent all that time traveling connected me to the patients a bit and brought gravity to the situation, as if there wasn't already enough weighing us down. Everyone was dying. Malaria, AIDS, general infections. Most of the diseases were treatable in some sense. Unfortunately, there is often a large gap between what is possible and what actually gets done. Never had I seen so many people in one place at one time that were destined to fall in that gap.

After wandering the ward for about a half hour talking to various patients and answering numerous questions about my white skin, tattoos and America, a young woman came up and without a word confidently took me by the hand. It would turn out that she spoke broken English with a very heavy Lugandan (1 of 50 dialects spoken in the region) accent and she must have been about 17. She wanted me to meet someone. And this was communicated without a word. As a person who talks way too much, I am always taken aback by those moments when so much can be said with so little. It should also be mentioned that in certain (most) parts of Uganda, white people are rarely seen. And so when a white person is wandering around, it draws attention. Children would run up as if I were a character actor at Disneyland holding a giant bag of free candy. And despite a certain administration's concerted effort to destroy the international reputation of America, there are still large numbers of people in the world who see an American and see hope at the same time (at least back in '08). I believe this is what was happening here, as unwarranted as it may have been, when she took me by the hand.

The girl led me to the very opposite end of the long ward. We passed every single patient in the building along the way. It was an uncomfortable procession. I could feel their eyes searching me from the ground, wondering about the purpose of my presence. I felt guilt because there was nothing I could do for any of them. I realized that it may have been irresponsible of me to even show my face given what little I could do. After what seemed like an eternity we arrived at the far end where a woman sat, surrounded by a number of children. She looked about 50, but was probably 35 or 40. She was wearing a dingy white dress and a white scarf around her head which contrasted dramatically against her deep, black skin. She had a look of fatigue and sorrow in her eyes. Yellow. And it wasn't more than a few seconds before I realized that she, too, had come here to die. Without an introduction she began to whisper in Lugandan, eyes averted toward the floor. Was it humility, embarrassment, or something else that caused her to look downward? I'm not sure. But I know I felt both of those things intensely. The girl who brought me to her translated. I stood there with my hands in my pocket, listening as she confirmed my suspicion.

She told me that several months ago she began to feel unwell and her urine was "different." But she didn't have money to go to the doctor and she couldn't stop working for even a day or her children would go hungry. They looked at me, understanding the words their mother said before they were translated to me. I don't know how I looked, what my expression said. I just hoped it was appropriate. Her husband had died from AIDS a few years earlier, which "by the grace of God" she never got. They always talked about the grace of God. Even as they lay dying on dirty floors. The rest of her family was gone as well. And so it was only she left to raise the children. She kept working, kept denying what she was feeling, expecting it to be gone each following day. But the following day never brought relief and so she eventually broke down and went to the doctor with great pangs of conscience over the sacrifices it would force upon her children. The doctor determined that she had cervical cancer. The treatment was surgical removal of the cancer and the prognosis was good... at that time. The surgery would cost her just under $200. It might as well have been a million. The average annual income in Uganda was around $250. Annual. Not monthly.

She continued her story. The cancer had since metastasized to her lungs and liver. All this, the diagnosis, the metastasis, and coming to the hospital had happened over the span of 3 weeks. Hardly ample time to prepare for one's own death. The future of the children sitting around her was entirely uncertain. As she told me about her life expectancy, in my pocket I felt a familiar sensation between my fingers. It was the friction of American money rubbing against itself. It was cotton paper, dyed green. I still remember exactly how much there was. I had nine twenty dollar bills and another fifty six dollars in fives and ones because very few shops in Uganda could break a twenty. $236. This woman's life and the right of the children to be with their mother was, in essence, folded uselessly in my pocket. I maintained my composure on the outside. But inside, everything I had ever built was crumbling. Every edifice was falling apart. The bridges, collapsing.

I know I couldn't have turned back time to before her cancer had metastasized. But that doesn't change the feeling that I wish I could have. And I know the fact that I had that money in my pocket is not the reason she died. Her death was simply a catalyst. That isn't entirely accurate.  Her death wasn't simple and it wasn't just anything.  Some synapse in my brain developed a strong association between that woman and the $200 that stood between her and her life.  I had to know how something so contrived and made of paper became so valuable that her children are now orphans.  At some point, after returning from Africa, the smell of the jungle dissipated from my clothes, the red dirt washed away from under my fingernails, and life got back to normal. Even though I couldn't have saved her, it would have been irresponsible of me not to figure out what the $236 in my pocket actually meant. It would have been reprehensible of me to try and hold on to my previous notions and continue to  embrace the ignorance in which I so lavishly basked during Mr. Barsanti's lectures . And so I began earnestly to seek answers to the few questions I had and to find more questions for answers I needed. Druing Mr. Barsanti's class the mystery of money was simply a juvenile rationalization to not pay attention.  The questions now seemed a matter of life and death.

In my intellectual pursuit to understand the fundamental basis of money, for the first time in my life, I started to understand something my dad had told me over and over again. I'm still amazed at how long it takes to really grasp a lesson that's been repeatedly given since before I can remember.  And I'm even more amazed how adults who seem like out of touch jackasses are actually very wise out of touch jackasses.  In this case, it took me 25 years. The thing my dad would always say, "money is just a tool."  He never really expanded any further. I guess he knew that I would have to figure it out for myself.

So what's the point of all of this? The stock we put in money has very real implications. And depending on the person, being informed can make a world of difference in their lives. I know it's allowed me to cope with the world as it currently is, make some intelligent (and more interesting) decisions that I might have otherwise not made, and release myself from some of the metaphorical shackles that people often allow money to place upon them. Very simply, money no longer holds the value that it once did.  And that's a freeing realization.  When I was young all I wanted was to be rich.  It was the only measure of success I knew.  Now, I just want to be fulfilled.  Money is just a tool.  I think understanding this fundamental idea will be of vital importance if we are ever to unite together and become something more than we are.  And that's really the overall theme.  True freedom and true unity.  They can coexist.  I'll write about my economic findings in the futre. But you don't have to wait. Google is about as convenient as it gets. And I know you have unanswered questions.

Consider this. We have love and money. And they are often pitted against each other. Love is something very real, with us even before we take our first breath, and immeasurable. And then there is money, which has only been around for milliseconds in the relative span of human existence, is the arbitrary construct of the human mind, and only continues to exist because of a sustained social agreement that it should have power. It's not difficult to decide which concept to stake a future upon. Because even at this moment, as sure as we live and breathe, the edifice is crumbling. And a broken tool is hardly useful.

Bleeding, Hearts, and Tutus.

After what seems like 10 years my brother and I finally sat down and worked on his tattoo for a little bit.  It was good to get back into it.  Only 400 more sessions spaced apart in 1 year intervals left to go and I'll be able to post a completed picture.  It's not that we aren't both committed, it's just that there are a lot of really good TV shows on and even if there weren't we would just watch every episode of Arrested Development in sequence until the end of time.

Molly, inspired by Natalie Portman in the Black Swan has began pursuing a career in the performing arts.  Look for her to make a meteoric rise to the top of the ballet world.

And I made this drawing a while ago.  I don't know where it is now... Washington D.C. or San Diego or somewhere in between.