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Garret, Part 2
Here's a story about this scumbag I know, named Garret.
Fucking Garret.
As you might’ve gathered, there had been a bit of history between me and this oversized, always awkward SOB. See, Garret was the guy who always seemed to mysteriously show up at the most inopportune time; the guy nobody wanted showing up in the first place. Yet, somehow, he'd always be there, lingering like the smell of night-before beer on the morning after. Always there.
“Back here again, I see,” muffled Garret after a long drag from his menthol cigarette. As predicted, his first remarks were pointed and with malice intent. Given the occasion, I almost thought we might’ve shot the shit first. Nope. He came out swinging, and so be it.
“I just missed you, is all. Aren’t you happy to see me?” Taking this type of sarcastic, confident stance was a risky move with this bozo. But the odds were stacked against me from the get-go and, if I was going to make it out of this one, I needed to try and stand my ground.
“I’m always happy to see you,” prodded Garret. “I just thought you might’ve learned your lesson after last time. Guess not. Whatcha drinkin’? Wait - let me guess - bad attitude, lit cigarette, this bar... whiskey?” As if he needed to ask.
Out of everything that went down that night, it was this moment that I remember most vividly. I remember sensing his permeating excitement, as he prematurely assumed victory. I remember how contagious it was. It hit me like an angry fog. I suddenly felt something I hadn’t before - something that had been eluding me ever since the first time I met Garret.
Control.
My flicked cigarette sparked as it struck the cement. My eyes sparked just the same, as I violently flared them at Garret’s off-guard smirk. I had him shook, and so I decided to take advantage. It was time to stop talking, and start walking.
“You know how much I like a good whiskey. Speaking of, isn’t it your turn to buy?” Just like I had taken his bait before, I knew he had no choice but to take mine. I turned to head back into the bar. Garret followed.
At last, it was time to settle this once and for all.
Tense: a poem on the subject of time
A poem about time. Who can count all the puns??
Tense
I wear it as if it were mine
Flying by, violent ticks deride me
Used myself unwisely
I find here what I lose there
Gearing up to re-wind and re-watch on repeat
Yet somehow I counter myself and move backwards
Tense, fractiously laughing in my big picture's background
While fractions of moments scatter-brain by like migraines
I lose track,
As I run out of space to save all that slipped away
I travel past all that might've lasted
Inured to the vivid blur of my future
Holding another stupor, wasted
Bending to the once mentor, turned user,
Turned "never learned" loser
As bright as a sundial at midnight,
The line is tight, so I run,
While standing still to watch it strike
But it stops, right when I would have been present
A reminder about probably the coolest thing that we humans have ever done
We sent two spaceships into outer space in search of something. As it turns out, what we were looking for was here all along.
The Golden Record. Credit: NASA
"4 billion years from now, when our sun turns into a red giant, Voyager is still going to be trucking out there through the stars. We'll still be out there." - Candy Hansen-Koharcheck
One time, we put a golden record on a spaceship and sent it off to interstellar space. This was part of a bigger mission, originally called the Voyager program.
Long after our sun burns out and we all perish, this golden record - which serves as the soundtrack of humankind - will be the last surviving evidence of our existence.
Some quick facts about the Voyager program:
In 1977, we sent two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, out into space on a mission to explore Jupiter and Saturn. The spacecraft were built to last five years.
They did a really good job with the Jupiter and Saturn thing, so the mission was extended. Voyager 1 was sent on a direct trajectory to the outer limits of our solar system and eventually interstellar space, while Voyager 2 was tasked with making a couple pitstops to both Uranus and Neptune, before following suit with Voyager 1.
Between the two of them, they were able to capture and transmit countless data regarding our systems's largest planets and their respective moons. They were also able to send back some super snazzy photos.
Before leaving our solar system, Voyager 1 turned around to take a portrait of us and our neighbors. Scientifically, there was no reasoning behind this detour, but Carl Sagan insisted that it be done. Now we have these:
Credit: NASA
And this:
After 40 years, both Voyager spacecraft are still out there, traveling farther than any man-made object ever has, exploring the unknown beyond our Sun's domain.
I haven't gotten to the best part.
The Golden Record
The Voyager program was designed to be more than a mission of exploration. In the unlikely event that either of these spacecraft were to encounter intelligent, extraterrestrial life, we included a golden phonograph record on each. Here's what the records contain:
115 images of our world and its various inhabitants
90 minutes of music from different times and cultures, including "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry
A selection of natural sounds, such as wind, thunder, waves and birds
Printed messages from President Carter and U.N. Secretary General Waldheim
Spoken greetings in 55 languages
The English greeting was recorded by a group of children, who simply and innocently stated, "Hello from the children of planet Earth."
What was the point of all this?
Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 set out to explore, and to help us better understand our place in this endless arrangement of everything. And with them, encapsulated in these golden records, is the story of who we are, and what it means to be human.
To me, this incredible, ongoing Voyager mission is an extension of the same mission that we all embark on within ourselves every day. And the golden record? It wasn't made for some alien to randomly discover in a couple billion years from now. We made it for ourselves, to serve as a reminder of how special we are, and what's possible when we all work together toward something big.
Just like these spacecraft, we are all explorers lost in space - all in search of, well, something.
"I can honestly say that art has saved my life."
A short story about the healing power of art, by ATX artist Brittany Robinson
A story by artist Brittany Robinson
This past year has been one of the toughest I’ve gone through. A DWI and other financial burdens, along with severe depression and generalized anxiety can take a toll on anyone. And for me, it absolutely did. For months, I subjected myself to escapism, using alcohol, opioids, or marijuana to cope with the pain. I chose to isolate myself from the outside world, and drown myself in chemicals that would only ever mask the pain (or occasionally make it worse). I didn’t know how to get myself out of this slump. My life became mundane and predictable - I would wake up, go to work, come home, drink/smoke until I was fucked up, then going to bed only to repeat the same thing the next day. I was wasting my life, because I thought I was a waste of life.
Amongst all of this pain, I really felt like something was missing. I couldn’t explain it. There were plenty of things in my life that could’ve used a change. I kept asking myself, “What do I need?” And to be honest, I didn’t know the answer. Maybe it was the prospect of a new job? Maybe I needed to start dating again? Whatever it was, I knew I needed to socialize and put myself out there somehow.
I needed to break the chain of predictability. I needed to break the chain of my mediocre life. But how would I do it?
Then one day, something clicked. Months prior, I had bought a small easel and a few canvases to paint, but they sat in my room untouched for the longest time. Before I moved to Austin, I would spend a lot of time painting in my room, but I’d never let anyone other than family see what I came up with. I’d just hang them around my room.
I actually found myself intimidated at the idea of getting back into painting. But I gave it a shot. My first attempt at it was a meditating man with the color of the seven chakras going through his body. It didn’t come out the way I wanted it to, so I repainted it a few times with different themes. It took months to finally complete but, during that time, I discovered something.
Art and expression were missing from my life. Being able to create something - a picture, an emotion - has become so fulfilling to me. Sometimes I have trouble expressing my true feelings verbally, so what better way than to show them visually? Whenever I paint, my negative thoughts disappear. I can let go and do what I want. I’m finally in control.
When you suffer with depression and anxiety, you understand how tough it is to feel like you’re in control of anything. Art has become me taking control of myself. Taking control of my depression and fighting my anxiety when I was too scared to show anyone my work. I even took a major leap by submitting a painting into my first ever art show.
Since that show, I’ve been painting on a regular basis. My small studio apartment is slowly overflowing with paintings I’ve created and, quite frankly, I love it. I’m still hard on myself and my work. I always feel like there’s room for improvement, and there always will be as long as I keep working toward bettering myself as an artist.
I have great people in my life that encourage me everyday to keep striving. I can honestly say that art has saved my life. I was born to create, to express, and to live the best life possible. And, as long as art is a part of my life, I’ll never feel like a waste again.
Each of Brittany's brilliant paintings, displayed above, are now available for purchase in the shop.
Garret, Part 1
Here's a story about this scumbag I know, named Garret.
It was late at night. I found myself outside of a bar, smoking a cigarette, when I ran into this douchebag I know named Garret.
Before Garret's unwavering perma-scowl could even attempt to form a word, I knew exactly what he was about to say, and why he had even shown up in the first place.
"Well, well, well. What in the absolute fuck, Garret?" I asked with commanding, sarcastic impatience.
"Bum a light?" replied Garret, barely.
Right then, I could've clocked Garret square in his big, round nose. But it was late, and I wasn't in the mood for a fist fight. Plus, I knew what we were in for. It was a different kind of fight that Garret was fixin' for, and maybe I was fixin' for the same.
Now, don't get me wrong. If it was any other night, I wouldn't bat a lazy eye at Garret and his always obnoxious, pot-stirring presence. But this wasn't any other night. And unfortunately for him, he caught me with just enough whiskey in my system to give a shit. So I took the bait.
"Yea, sure. I got a light."
And there, outside of the bar, with the sudden flick of a zippo and two bitter stares, it began.
To be continued...
Here's What 43 People Want to Change about Life
I asked people to share one thing they planned to change. Here are the results.
"WaterCloudWater"
"Share One Thing You Plan to Change"
I have this recurring dream about us all working together toward something big. It's always the same.
I picture two people sitting across from one another at a kitchen table. They're having an open, honest conversation. The ratio between speaking and listening remains mutually equal throughout the exchange. They eventually form a common understanding. They smirk, clink their coffee mugs together, and become friends.
The dream always ends there. It's fucking sweet.
Anyway, I like poetry, so I wrote one about what that conversation could be, if we all could somehow have it together:
WaterCloudWater 1105172100
Observation engages thought
Thought formulates reason
Reason illuminates meaning
Meaning establishes purpose
Purpose inspires action
Action creates change
Change invites observation
I thought the poem came out ok, so I decided to show it at a local art show. It was an interactive piece so, along with the poem itself, I made a request to the audience:
Share one thing you plan to change.
Here are the responses I got from that request:
- Save all the damn dogs
- The way people with mental illnesses are perceived & treated
- My gender
- Level of openness to new energy
- My life
- Societal expectations
- My passion
- This
- My mental health. I have manic depression.
- FTW DON'T ASK ME 4 SHYT!
- Lives
- Bold action only
- Deep gratitude practice for all beings every day xoxo
- Sum bitch
- Job
- 💘
- My attitude about work
- Perspective
- Tha system
- Fake democracy
- I ❤️ Dick
- Tell me how you feel. I won't be mad.
- Sarah's sassiness
- Perception is everything
- Work ethic
- 💘 (different one)
- To thine own self be true
- Don't wanna change a thing, really... right now.
- Our comfort zone! Push the limits
- My self care
- The way that people interact with art!
- My inability to be vulnerable
- I want to make handmade, quality goods cool again
- Eat better
- Love myself more
- My underwear
- Habit
- Lose more control
- I am changing the way I view myself
- My mind
- Focus on myself and not compare myself to others
- Job
- Go Astros! 11-1-17
So regarding this conversation - the one at the kitchen table that I dream about - it seems to still remain internal for most.
Random Quotes from Random People - Nov '17 Edition
Memorable quotes can come from anywhere, apparently.
“Wine tastes better after stomping on some grapes.”
“If you hop a fence in a tuxedo, that’s art.”
“Life shouldn’t be about the pursuit of happiness. Sadness is just as good for you. Instead, make life about the pursuit of experience.”
“A bad day can last a month, but then it ends.”
“The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.”
“Dude, thanks, but honestly I have no fucking idea what I’m doing. I’m just trying to figure my shit out. No idea, like at all. ”
“Hey Andrew - Just thinking about you and hoping you’re having a good day.”
I'll post more every month. Meantime, share some random quotes in the comments below!
The Last Act of Honor
Is compromise our last act of honor?
"The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be." - Socrates
Honor.
Honor is an enigmatic premise. With honor comes the responsibility, or perhaps burden, of maintaining one’s pride and integrity. This maintenance occurs within one’s mind, unbeknownst to an audience who’ve long dismissed the idea, deeming it as a selfish and/or stubborn act. In assuming an honorable stance, your decisions can sometimes dismiss other valuable characteristics, such as reason and compromise. Honor is a stern distinction. It doesn’t budge from its stance, or bend its truth. It lives in the black and white, while most of us have evolved to blur the lines, and live amidst a foggy, more forgiving haze of grey. We consider this grey area to be acceptable in today’s society.
We are a society, after all. While honor is true, it is merely true to the self. We are a people, but we are individuals, each with our own legacy and laws to abide by. Honor is built from the roots of our ancestor’s principles. But, over time, these roots have tangled outwards from their origin; forging different paths, breaking off and falling from their birthplace, only to become new roots with new paths in new birthplaces.
We now live in a vast forest of varying truths.
Because we all form our own respective codes to live by, we must reason with one another when faced with conflict. Otherwise, we would constantly be at war with not only each another, but also ourselves. So the grey has become common ground for us all to amicably reside within, offering each other an understanding. We communally agree that honor’s truth must be allowed to bend, that its stance must be allowed to budge, in the name of individuality.
However, in doing so, what happens to the nature of truth?
In choosing to compromise, we are essentially changing the rules of our honor which, as it seems, violates the very idea of honor itself. We can exist in the grey. Our honor, however, truly cannot. Yet, perhaps, the act of compromise could be considered an honorable one. Perhaps compromising, both individually and collectively, is our last demonstration of honor, as we allow the white to give way to the black, and blend into an irreversible, undefined grey fog. In compromise, we dismiss our honor, thus dismissing ourselves to become a people.
But are we less at war with one another? Are we less at war with ourselves?
Biocentrism Says Existence Is a Matter of Perception
If you are not there to observe it, does it exist?
“Without consciousness, space and time are nothing.” - Robert Lanza
As maniac as this idea may seem, it stands as a relatively popular theory known as biocentrism, or the theory of everything. It’s the idea that consciousness is responsible for the existence of the universe, not the other way around as physics would have you believe.
As all that we know from physics continues to yield more questions than answers, medical doctor and scientist, Robert Lanza, has presented this new way to approach the “why?” question. His theory of everything places biology first, suggesting that the “web would not exist without the spider.” A shared consciousness, which kindles our collective web of all things known, is responsible and necessary for the existence of the universe and, without this shared consciousness, there would simply be nothing.
From a different angle, this notion could be explained by suggesting that things don’t exist unless you are there to observe them. This has been countlessly demonstrated by the famous double-slit experiment, in which entangled particles only present themselves as identifiable when they are observed. When they are not observed, they do not exhibit any unique properties within any specific orientation of space and time, but rather present themselves as a wave with infinite possibility across all of space and time.
Through physics, we’ve made significant progress in understanding the nature of our universe. Matter is studied as we track its motion and behaviors, and various physical theories are put to the test against the laws we’ve mostly come to accept. And while this scientific method can allot a certain level of confidence to its known facts about the nature of our universe, it must insist that no scientific fact be considered an absolute truth.
Even science admits that the very nature of truth is a matter of perception, and thus can never be absolute.
This fact - that there are no facts - also presents a problem for the theory of biocentrism, and it all comes down to the “truth” about space and time. Biocentrism regards both space and time as mental tools that we use collectively to form a frame of reference for our existence, rather than regarding them as physical objects that can be measured. If you can’t measure space or time, then you can’t prove that they exist, or that anything exists within their respective boundaries, including the theory of biocentrism.
It’s funny and ironic to think that nothing is true yet, as you observe it to be, it is.