Writing is a Virus

Let's all just try to get along, shall we? You might not like me but we're gonna have to learn to work together. If we pull in a common direction, we'll improve our chances of success and survival. Don't we all wanna succeed and survive?

Our only way of passing on our genes and memes is through other people. I dunno. But I know I love you, no matter who you are. Why? Because I learned to love myself. How? By working on myself. I've made myself into a man I can love, a man I love instinctively.

I learned how to treat myself with respect. I did so by working hard to earn that respect. I had to get healthy in mind and body. It took years, but I've done it. I'ma keep like this my whole life, getting better and better every day. I'ma try and stay humble. I'ma try and mix confidence with humility.

I'm confident in what I know, yet humble enough to know I never see the whole truth and can always seek corrections. Tell me when I'm wrong. I'd love to hear counter-arguments to some of the ideas rocketing around in my head.

I feel like I've found some of the greatest ideas humans have come up with. The rest of the journey is actually onboarding them, integrating them into my soul-body structure. I know I'm a hypocrite, but I try not to be. I know I'm weak but I try not to be. I know I'm a sinner but I try not to be.

The world is thorny, complex, and brutal. Let's work together to make it safer, more comfortable, and accommodating to everybody. Let's shine a light on the dark corners of the world. Let's flush out the scorpions, snakes, lies, and tigers. Let's find the inequities in our souls and try to find balance. Let's mediate between the light and dark side of our souls. Let's walk the fine line, fine as a razor's edge, between eternity and death.

All I'm tryna do is channel the best writing for you that I can. I'ma try find the absolute optimal conditions and fuckin let the pen run. I'ma let it say what it wants. It's my job to get out of the way.

All I am is a hand that can manipulate a pen and a head that understands how to use words. I am not my self, my ego or my id. I am not the person you, they, or I think I am. I am not the image I see in the mirror. I am not my Facebook account. I am not my fingerprints.

I step aside and the pen becomes me. Who am I? A pen. You are listening to a pen talking – the ramblings of a ballpoint pen. Today I languished placidly on the carpet with my pal, Notebook, then Hand picked me up and now you and I are connecting, if not in-person, then person-to-pen.

I'm afraid it's a pretty one-sided chat, more of a monologue really. But don't worry; I care what you think. I care more than anything else in the world. I care so much, in fact, that maybe you're feeling like you wanna pick up a pen, maybe a pad of paper too, and start seeing what the pen has to say.

You see now how writing's a virus? We gotta stamp it out before it takes over the world.

God's not Dead

Look at all the chaos. See all that pain and suffering? That's caused by a lack of faith in the Truth. We don't live in a Post-Truth World. That's just some bullshit soundbite that sounds good on TV. Fuck anyone who tries to tell you life is Post Truth. The only reason they'd tell you that is to help swallow a lie. 

We live in the same world we've always lived in. All the humans who've ever existed came to life and died on this rock. All our heroes and villains, gods, goddesses, and Truths came alive with us. As long as we're here, they are too. 

God isn't dead. Truth isn't dead. Love isn't dead. How do I know? Cause God loves you and that's true. God loves you and wants you to be rich. All you gotta do is fill out this subscription. Nine ninety-nine a month.

The Crowing of a Digital Rooster

Imagine a near-future, Ray Bradbury kinda place where we're all CRISPR'd to where we're exactly the same. We look, sound, smell, taste, and feel the same as everyone else. Somehow we figured out how to find the average of everything: height, weight, build, eye colour, hair, skin, everything, boob size, dick length (we're hermaphrodites, of course), we're all the fuckin same...

We open our eyes simultaneously at the crowing of our digital rooster. As we step onto the floor, the air lights up and the walls dissolve into a warm golden light. Fine smelling mist fills the room, warm and cleansing, followed by a rich warm air blowing in from the south, drying our glistening skin. 

A light cotton smock waits folded on the dresser, beside a glass full of deep amber liquid. We drink our breakfast of carbs, lipids, and proteins, mixed with some caffeine and SSRIs then step out into the hall where we nod to our neighbour and make our way to work. 

All we do, all everyone does, is consume content from the past. From 9 to 5 (some things never change) we walk on trails through varying biospheres while our subconscious floats in the Cloud. Together, using our collected thought power and mind strength, we try to understand our ancestors. 

For, if we learn about the mistakes of the past, then we have a higher chance of avoiding them. And, as the voice tells us every night before bed, differences are mistakes. Iron out the differences and you'll find Heaven on Earth.

Alien Archaeologists

How good can it really get on the surface of Earth? If we all stepped up, leaned in, and pulled through, if we all decided to work together for a second, I wonder how good it could get. Fuck nation-states, fuck religions, fuck races, fuck tribes, fuck differences of all kinds.

We're the same, you and I, the same hardware, software, wetware. Cut into a human and we've all got the same guts. A heart is a heart is a heart is a heart. Know what I'm saying? Would you be able to tell your skull from mine?

Eight billion skeletons all wrapped up in differences. How much pain and suffering have those differences caused? How much laughter and joy? It's our differences that paint paintings, make music, and land people on the moon.

When the aliens dig up our bones and try to figure out how we lived, the differences and similarities will all turn to dust. Out of the dust I came, and into dust I go. My life is a moment in the eye of a storm. It seems calm and visibly clear. Behind and ahead, all is dust.

Conversations with Yourself

The best place to write is in bed in the early morning with coffee and weed in the system. That's been scientifically proven to be the best way. Hydrated as well. Weed, coffee, water, pad, and a pen, and – boom – you're flying down the lines barely even touching the page and the pen takes over and soon there's nothing in the universe but that little river of black spilling outta the pen, that little, oh so specific river of words and emotions, metaphors, and inferred meanings.

Who am I to say that I know what the writing means? I am a bunch of muscles and tendons held together in skin with a nervous system just crazy enough to wrap itself around a pen every day and watch it make a mess on the page.

'Who am I?' asks the pen.

'Not me,' I answer, trying to hold it steady.

You and I are watching the same car wreck, dear reader. I have no more control over the words than you. You see, I forgot to read the terms and conditions. I gave up control twelve years ago when I sold my soul for a pen at two in the drunk morning in my parents' basement.

Since then it's lifted me, picked me up and propelled me forward, pushing me onto planes, trains, and automobiles in search of a story, for something to say. Follow the pen, friend, and it'll show you the world, encountering and engendering ideas you never imagined.

What does it mean to follow the pen? It means picking up a writing device – pencil, pen, crayon, Sharpie, quill, typewriter, BlackBerry, PalmPilot, Xbox controller, keyboard, Oculus Rift gauntlet, whatever, and fuckin following the words as they tumble outta your head.

Do you actually know who's in there? Ever had a conversation with yourself? Ask a page 'Who the fuck am I?' and see what bubbles up in response.

Room 101

Writing is the only place where I'm in control. My society doesn't respect me. I'm young and don't make any money. Nobody takes a broke 30-year-old dude with no kids seriously.

What about Musk and Zuck and Jobs and Gates, the gods of our times who changed the world in their 20s? What about the actors and athletes, the pop stars and models who came up in their late teens?

I'm just frustrated cause I chose a game where you don't get good till you're 60. Until then I'm practicing. But I still want people to listen, dammit.

I'm conflicted. One part of me – the one who's learned from great writers – knows that the craft requires decades of diligent work. The other part wants to be rich and famous right now because they're the markers of success.

Fuck that shit. Telling the fuckin truth's the only marker. The truth's the guide, the light, the fire in the night. It's the only real thing out there. Maybe pain. Life is suffering. True. What are you gonna do about it?

Write. I write to alleviate the pain of my suffering. And in doing so, I hope to find a tonic, a salve that works for my people. Here's a cold cloth on a hot summer's day. Here's a tall glass of water with ice, lemon, and mint. Lie back on the pillows, close your eyes and relax.

Eugh. I feel like Jeff Epstein. No, I don't. I feel like a blind mole rat scrabbling away at a concrete fuckin wall. I'm a rat in a cage and the only way out is through Winston Smith's face. Hold onto your butts; it's slobbering time.