The Martian Code of Ethics

What a fucked up few months we've had. Our first pandemic. That wasn't too bad, some people are thinking. Oh, you just wait, friend. Shit ain't even started.

Flash forward a few years and there's smoke on every horizon. The air's acrid and putrid. The flies just won't go away. Crops burn. Rivers no longer exist. The oceans are salt flats. Humans either live at the poles, underground or on Mars.

Those who could afford it escaped to the red planet in 2021. After the western United States exploded, taking Canada and most of the Pacific with it, shit went south. It was kinda fun for a while. Watching it on the news was exciting. But then things got exciting in the streets so we stopped watching TV and began watching our backs.

Many people disappeared one night. We woke up and half the planet was gone. Empty beds. Quiet neighbourhoods. Empty launchpads where the rockets once stood. At first we assumed they'd come get us, or at least send a message.

We wouldn't have ever known if it wasn't for the cast-offs, rejects, outcasts, and condemned banished back to Earth for transgressing one of the rules of the Martian Code of Ethics.

It read very much like the American Declaration of Independence with a bit of the Tao and a sprinkling of Battlestar Galactica. The outcasts spoke of cities of gold and rivers of milk and honey. People communicate telepathically and hate has been expunged once and for all.

For us heathens, scorched earth remains. Like beasts we scratch on our bellies in the dirt, eating roots and roaches and drinking toxic slime. We die early. Thirty-five is old and wise. We've forgotten all we once knew. I'm writing this using a stick and some mud.

I myself have been banished. The outcasts cast me out. I live at the bottom of a burned-out elevator shaft in an apartment complex in what used to be the capital city all bustling and noisy with laughter. I hope life is different for you.

Love Love Love

I'ma judge no one. I have no standards. It's not up to me to determine someone's worth or unworth. I can pass no sentence. For I, my friend, am an hypocrite. I think everyone should be better and yet I fail every day. I am neither the best nor the worst human being on the planet. I am somewhere slap bang in the middle.

I'ma let go of titles, plaques, pieces of paper, and medals. All that matters is writing something better than yesterday. So what is the final solution? Well, we'll see. When the chips are down and the blood's been spilled, when the aggressor's holding a knife to your neck, when there's blood all over your linoleum floor, then we'll know what really went down. Until then, my friend, it's only conjecture. It's a hell of a gamble we make. Make, take, rake over the coals and see if there's not actually something very special inside.

Look deep into the fire. What can you see? There's something worth investigating. I can guarantee that. If you feel what I feel deep in your soul, then we should probably get the fuck outta here. This is no place for people like us. So come on! Let's get fuckin outta here. I'm gonna write platitudes all fuckin day! Platitudinous rex. Know what I'm sayin?

Stare off into the middle distance and listen to my words. Listen to the sound of my voice. I'll let you know when it's time to come out of your trance. Telling people some epic fuckin stories around a fire in a teepee with the wind howling out there but it's warm and cosy in here. There's water, wine and smoke. Whatever you want. Then I play the drum and sing a song then begin the story of the wandering bull. I've got a setlist and I'm taking you through a prescriptive journey, one that takes you to the edge then dumps you over it, filling your heart with fear and pity then releasing the floodgates for some fuckin cathartic waves to pass through. It's one of the most beautiful feelings in the world – catharsis. And no one really talks about it. Do you know what it is? Do I? I should study it more deeply.

What do you think about the end of the world? Will you be there when the planets collide? Fuck no. I'ma be long dead and buried. I'll have returned to the eternal source. All will be well with the cosmos. Nothing lasts forever. Even forever is a blink of the eye. Fear not the reaper. He's an old friend, come to pick you up for an epic car ride, a road trip to the very center of your soul. Would you recognize your soul if you saw it in the street or beside the toothpaste in aisle twenty-five? Where does your dream self go when the lights come on and you open your eyes and the alarm blares out a brand new day? It shuffles off its perch, off the coil, and into the shadows of our mind, our mind's eye, our sub or unconscious, the deepest, darkest part of our being, the part we don't share with strangers, we don't even know it ourselves, shit gets crazy down there, all wild, sweaty, and steamy. Salads are being tossed, heads are being given, moans, groans, and sobs sound from the creases and hollows. Wet sounds. Pet sounds. Wet sounds. How you like them apples? Forbidden fruit – apples and cherries crunching and popping. Step up, step in for your chance to win. Everyone's equal here, my perverted friend. I don't care about your healthy aspects. I wanna see where you're sick. Show me the darkness and I'll show you mine. Together, in the darkness, two snakes entwined.

The Creative Method

Stories can help show us how we should live. That's why we need em. The scientific method tells us what life is. The creative method tells us how it could be. Think of something you know to be true. Pick a fact out of the world then think about how it could be different in one simple way.

Zebras have black and white stripes, for example. What if they were purple and yellow? That, my friend, is called being creative. Think about something. Change it. Now think about how it would be.

What would the world be like if aliens took over? What would it be like to be the first humans on Earth? What would it be like if a New York heiress fell in love with a bank robber from New Orleans?

What if? What would life be like if..? What would happen if...? The cool thing about the creative method is that after running the simulation, you can bring back what you found – the lessons, mistakes, new understandings – and integrate them into your life in the Real World.

Just as science helps us understand the basic rules and make up of our beautiful universe, creativity helps us understand the basic rules and make up of our beautiful souls.

Neither can replace the other. Each benefits and enhances the other. They are dualities, brothers, two sides of the same page. The more creative our scientists are, the better. The more scientific our creatives are, the better. Together, we'll figure it out.

A Beginner's Guide to Telling the Truth

I had a crazy vivid dream. I kept waking up and going back into the dream. I was in a cabin in the woods, a kind of back-country hostel, and all my friends were there, friends from now as well as in the past.

There were threats of all kinds, from having no room so I'd have to sleep with a stranger, to bears attacking, to some kind of interpersonal beef where I was in trouble with all my acquaintances. They were all running around anxiously now.

During the chaos, I found myself drafting a plan to the most perfect piece of writing ever penned by a human. It made sense of the whole world, now and forever. I understood the story at a macro and micro level.

I drew up a draft so perfect that even my body knew heavy shit was going down; it kept waking me up to remember it. And then in the rainy Sunday morning light, all that was left was one sentence, the phrase, a title.

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.