It's Aight!

SUP BOOTY BUMPS!


So I haven't posted in a while. Truth is, I got frustrated--I found that this blog eventually fell to the same ranting all my other blogs did. I used those journals to wring out my psychological grossness, but that ended up becoming fucking tiresome. Feel shitty, get anxious, freak out, post blog about how I'm freaking out, feel better, rinse, repeat.

Yet for all that, years of writing out all my probs only served to remind me what they were. That shit allowed me to keep my feet firmly planted in the muck of the past while I watched everyone else seem to enjoy their (much easier-seeming) lives. I was plagued. PLAGUED, I TELL YOU.

So what the fuck am I doing? Why start a new piece of writing if my pattern itself hasn't changed?

Welp, dear reader, it's because I just realized something. I realized something super ridiculously simple. So simple, in fact, that it took me years to actually understand it.

Life has no goal.

WHOOOA NIHILISM ALERT! No no no, I don't mean that life has no meaning. It has plenty of meaning, much of which we create ourselves. What I mean is--being alive isn't a competition. Losing isn't losing...we INVENTED losing. The only thing you ever have to do is...live your life.

Seriously. That fucking easy.

'Be alive'.




Are you doing it?




Because in the end, it's ALL right. Win or lose. Good or bad. Dali Lama or homeless Bill. If your heaven is a hallowed land of milk and honey or a vat of velveeta nacho cheese with an attached neverending hamster bottle of whiskey--it's alright. Seriously s'aight! Have yours goals, but always remember who created them.

You.

Hello Goodbye

Linus toted around a baby blue security blanket. He had the stones to carry his around for everyone to see. If you're like me, though, your baby blanky is a little less substantial (literally, anyway.)

I've been forging my way through what feels like the darkest part of my not a whole lotta' years for quite some time now, trying to figure out what the hell to do next (and how to even 'do next' in the first place) and I came upon the realization that I've been carrying around my own age-crusted security quilt, and brosef--that shit is weighing my punkass down.

Lemme 'splain; as a young, scared, sometimes lonely sometimes anxious little guy growing up black in America in the late 80s, I got lots of lessons in fear. I could tell you the top twenty ways I wouldn't make it home before I even left the house. Half of those being "because my Dad will take me away again." Woof, right? Yet I always knew in the back of my mind that I'd be okay--because I was a smart kid with POTENTIAL. And you know who ELSE had potential? My Grandma and Grandpa--there were darn near mythologized by the time I was born, and their success stories gave me the secret assurance that I, too, could succeed. We were family after all! I had an I.Q. of "shut up, smarty pants" and a chip on my shoulder. I was MADE for this.

No, literally, I thought my success was essentially a guarantee as long as I NEVER MADE A MISTAKE EVER. At least, that's what my baby blanket was. As a matter of course, success is a snarling, awful, high-maintenance shoulder-devil that never lets you off the hook for anything. As something you can achieve with hard work, dedication, love, and honesty--success is an excellent outcome to shoot for. More than anything else, it isn't promised to anyone. Even kids shakily recovering from trauma and trying to gain some ground in this big, crazy world.

I'd been aiming at the wrong target for a lifetime. Life ain't a video game--so obsessing over which failures are keeping you from saving the eponymous macguffin monarch is just damaging to your own soul. It makes simple things impossible--things as simple as staying true to yourself.

Which I'd prefer, anyway.

Love ya, loves.

Dak

Nobody's Hero

Ohasashiburi da na, y'all! Long time no see!

Um, also--I guess I'm not seeing you right now either. SEMANTICS.

I gotta' be honest, these months have been chock full of ups and downs. Primary among them was a dread/paralysis that I'm very used to and very tired of. Internally, my stomach starts to get hot, I begin to sweat, and I get tongue-tied. For like...weeks. I don't want to leave the house, since any interaction feels like it's got the highest stakes in the world. It turns me inward--to the point where I can summon up loneliness like a wizard. ACCIO DELUSIONS!

Granted, this has been a familiar feeling for me for quite a while--but never so intense as it's been this time, so after a chat with some of my...ohh...let's call them my Spirit Trust, I finally just got curious. And quiet. In dropping the heaviness and profundity of it all (OMG LIFE IS SO SERIOUS ALL THE TIME) I could actually explore where this thing came from and why I hold on to it so tightly. I could ask myself why this 'game over' scenario seemed to hang over my head like sweet mashup between The Pit and the Pendulum and the Sword of Damocles. Truth be told, it was simpler than I thought. I wanted to be everybody's hero...and not my own.

Four year old me got hurt. Four year old me felt like a pawn in everyone else's game. I never wanted anybody to suffer what I did--in the way that I did. In my mind, I could protect the world. More profoundly--I thought I had to.

So then what happens when I fuck up? What happens if I fail to perform? What happens if I slip on a banana peel and land face-down ass-hilariously-up in a pyramid display of EXTRA ABSORBENT SPORT PADS FOR THE LADY ON THE MOVE™ ? Well, what I thought happened was: in my failure to be a hero, I was letting down an entire world that I was supposed to be fixing. Or 'making safe for everyone'. I tried to perfect, I tried to be perfect, and I tried to make perfect. It felt inescapable--because it is.

It's also limiting. How the hell can I respect everything I am if it's all gotta' fit into this 'hero mold' of perfection? The answer is--I can't. Truth be told, I'm far too much of a rebellious, goofy, out-of-left-field kinda' guy to fit everybody's mold for what a conventional hero ought to be. Oh, also, it's not my job.

For decades, I'd been living according to principles I'd created as a fear reaction before I had any deep understanding of the world. I refuse to allow that to color my life anymore. I'm nobody's hero but my own.

And so are you. Fuck the dogma. Wear your cape. Use your powers for what YOU decide is the greatest good. Aquaman doesn't patrol Metropolis.

I'll see you in the skies.

Love,
Dak

VR Goggles

Nobody perceives reality as it is. Now hold up a sec--this gets way more and less esoteric. Y'see, as human beings, we only have so much ability to understand and engage in the world around us. My understanding is this--our senses constantly reinterpret information from reality, and those senses are, like us, beautifully imperfect. We thought the world was flat! Then we thought it was the center of the universe...now we are ABSOLUTELY certain that we know what we know and that's the way it is. Thing is--neuroscience has recently discovered that our brains function more like a computer desktop than a lens through which we perceive the truth as the truth. When you double-click on a folder, you understand that you aren't opening a physical object which contains other physical objects. Our computers serve to reframe ones and zeros so we can manipulate them as we see fit. Those ones and zeros are reality and our senses are our monitors.

Mind.

Blown.

But to step back from Matrix-style neuroscience and place a foot firmly on practical application, this means that everyone is right and nobody is right. Personally, I find an incredible amount of freedom in this realization. As someone who spent--well--a whole lot of time trying futilely to polish the lenses of my VR goggles, the realization that the most uncluttered version of my reality is still MY version of it is incredible. You mean it isn't about finding the truth, but finding my truth?

Well shit.

That must mean everyone has their own personal version of reality. They're all correct...and all totally unabashedly wrong. So all that perfectionism? Yeah, self-constructed. Not real. The ink on our stories is never totally dry. Not only is it ever-changing, but it's SCIENTIFICALLY ever-changing. Those 'realities'...those ideas about myself I held so dear--they're constructions I've used to make sense of my life. You too. You wrote your narrative to support your present.

So why dress up make-believe and call it "the way it is"? None of it is "the way it is". We don't even know what "the way it is" is. So let that rattle around in your brain a bit. And while you're at it, you now have a scientific reason to ditch the bullshit that doesn't serve you.

See you in the editing room!

Love,
Dak

What's Left in the Embers

Don't mind that title, I've been listening to the new Modest Mouse album, Strangers to Ourselves, recently and it's putting me in a 'make up cool-sounding sentences' mood. Even so, the album title lends itself to writing out what's new with me.

(You'll also have to pardon the months I was AWOL. I spent this Spring touring a show across the state, clowning and speaking ASL for 111 sweet performances. Sometimes four(!!)-show days. Cah-raziness. I loved it and I miss it. I miss using 100 percent of my faculties every day. I miss problem-solving when the inevitable hurdle rears up--considering the three months of travel. Anyway--I find during tour times it's really tough for me to split my focus. Now, when it's all said and done, I'm like a kite tied up to a laundromat. I fly high when the wind blows, otherwise I sit there like in a colorful rumple, watching people file in and out.)

 ANYHOO, for the first time in my life, I'm feeling like I straight-up have no clue who I am. After a talk with my spiritual advisor/yoda/life coach/Mom, I came to realize that so much of my reality has been my 'narrative', that I'm now in the process of sorting the truths from the stories. Granted, that's sort of my perpetual state, but this one's different (I swear..!) Deep down, I know I spend a lot of time husslin' for acceptance/love/respect because it supports this story that I am inherently powerless.

Whaaaat? Sheeeeit.

What I mean by that is, the story I told myself about my folks divorce, the stories I told myself to get through those long days waiting waiting waiting, the stories I told myself to soften the blow of my mistakes (which, if you think you've got no power, only serve as evidence to support the claim) were all constructed based on the most profound 'story' I had--a story I wrote when I was five years old.  Which...I mean, yeah. Of course I felt powerless at 5. I couldn't even drive. I couldn't even buy pants without the help of a grown-up! I mean, I'd need SOMEone to tell me whether my toddlin' butt looked fly.

Y'see, the point I'm getting at here is, what's the use of living by a past you created before you even truly met the world? Before you even met yourself? I mean hell, it served me to some degree--that's why I kept it up. It's really easy to deal with mistakes, missteps, and failures when they're beyond your purview. Then, when you like what's going on, you can chalk it up to just being especially lucky. Or special. Or unique in some capacity. I paid for that. I paid for letting "fate" take my hand and lead me about. I paid for it in empty successes that I had no control over, I paid for it in fearing any tasks I deemed insurmountable, because whether I gave my all or gave a scrap, the outcome was beyond me.

And now, realizing that I've spent a lifetime reacting...denigrating stubbornness because it was for stupid people who refused to give up when they met with failure (I mean, didn't they know it makes no difference what they do?) And realizing that this is not, in fact, The Perpetual And Unchanging Nature Of The World, but a security blanket I've carried since I was old enough to need one. Realizing that nobody has laid out a life for me, not even the people I've accused of doing so. Realizing these things--and letting them be okay--and letting them go...

I don't know, you guys. It's left me kind of a blank slate. A blank excited slate, because I fully expected to burn down this house and find nothing left standing. Who the hell knew that the house was a fortress--and after the fire--what's left in the embers is me?

Love on! Rock on! Kick ass!

-Dak

"The Big 3-0" or "Dax Must Die!"

There are a lot of ways to take that title the wrong way, let me explain:

I turned 30 a few days ago, which has been excellent and completely surreal. I tend to be one to dwell. To consider events, situations, and choices, rolling them around in my head until I've memorized all the nooks and crannies so I can find meaning in it. Well yeah, duh. Big gasp there--but it's not often that I allow myself to let these things GO. It's all well and good to learn your lesson, but keeping your pop quizzes tacked up on the fridge for an entire life is just a waste of fridge space--and that's a shame for all your sweet macaroni art.

I've been pretty terrified of death and dying for as long as I remember. Yeah, I've flirted with being invincible and all that (jumping out of a plane, being a teenager, etc.) but I've never quite felt like I was out of danger. Growing up how I did, feeling--for the most part--like a fugitive, then a disappointment, then shiftless and discontented, despite many successes and wonderful things in my life. Y'see, as it turns out, what I was trying to do was cling tightly to some long gone but well remembered vague feeling of "Things used to be better." followed by "I used to be better." After much frustration I would capitulate to "Things were different." and that alone was cause for self-doubt, self-hatred, and self-get-drunk. I don't know when I attached such negative associations with change, but it was always the great unknown--from which anything could jump out and rear its ugly head and serrated teeth. I taught myself to be afraid of it, as it was the domain of monsters.

Um...but yeah...that don't work.

What's wrong with change? The unknown isn't hiding monsters, it's hiding brand new bits and pieces of life. Sure, there are hurts and scrapes and bruises and mistakes and failures, but there are also successes and loves and happinesses and awesome (in the original sense) moments. In fact, change is what brought us all everything good in our lives.

Change is the death of the old for the sake of the new...and I was so afraid to 'die'. I was afraid to let go of all the things I assumed comprised the complete human being I am. I thought I'd be saying goodbye to safety. By embracing change, I was also embracing humanity's biggest inevitability--and that was the scariest part. I thought I was giving in. Yeah...giving in to a natural amazing aspect of life that you can't actually opt out of. So yes, three decades down the road and I've come around to accepting life's timeline, and godDAMN if that doesn't feel good for the soul.

I don't plan on kicking the bucket any time soon, but not because I'm clinging to safety at any cost. I just have lots left to do.

And so do you!

Stay fresh. Love,
Dak

WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Who do you think you are?

Honestly.

I've been thinking about this question, and if I had to answer, I'd probably rattle off several things that have been said about me. True or not, these are the repeating motifs in our lives, and they can become who we are if we aren't careful--and if we aren't honest--and if we aren't truly owning our stories. I used to think my memory was bad. I used to assume I only remembered the bad stuff and the rough times and assumed that's all there was. I assumed that's all I was. I had it in my head that the positive stuff wasn't as important because it didn't seem to affect me as much. Truth is, it just hurt more so it wound up sticking with me in a more profound way.

Combine that with a crippling need to overcompensate for my lack of 'worthiness' and feel superior (by being the noblest victim ever)  and you get a recipe for...well...a recipe for a fairly boring existence. Here's the schwing, when you take time not just to paint your life in the colors that serve your ego best, but with the colors of honesty, you get a fuller more authentic picture of who you are. You get to take into account every triumph and face-fall, you get to remember the pedestrian, the seemingly inconsequential, beautiful moments that make up a fully realized human life. You stop casting yourself in the roles people have cast you in, and you begin creating the you that you want to be.

It's easy for me to start thinking about all my mistakes, heaping shame and guilt onto myself, having a personal woe-is-me fest, and then making a concerted effort to deny all the good in my life. We trip over potholes and shut down the whole road. EVEN WHEN THAT ROAD HAS AN IN N' OUT BURGER! I don't want to be so afraid of tripping again that I refuse myself that double double with animal style fries. Look, it isn't a perfect analogy, but I am getting hungry...

We have an entire walk-in closet of experiences, so why do we keep wearing the same thing every day? For me, it's often because those clothes fit and I don't want to take the time to break in a new pair of jeans (despite how great my butt looks in them.) I'm noticing more and more though, that if I take time to look at my extensive wardrobe, I discover outfits I never even knew I had. Or better yet, outfits I forgot I had. Far from being a life characterized solely by doom, gloom, and struggle, mine becomes a complexly, full journey of amazing humanness. I bet you anything that yours is as well.

So who do you think you are?

Cuz me? I think I'm whatever I want to be.

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

Love you!

-Dak