Separate From Your Chaos

Every artist I know is an embattled person.  Making something out of nothing is difficult, and with the stress of regular life on top of that being an artists can feel like a two front war. 

 The reason we respect great jokes, paintings, or architecture is because they are improbable near miraculous accidents.  The country songwriter that churns out 90 unbearably ok chorus ideas knows that all this is necessary to birth the one hit.  Somehow we have to strain and labor before an effortless idea glides into the room like a prom date. 

 This constant pulling on the invisible is the primary and only job of an artist.

 In the church world I came of age in, people believed in prophets.  A prophet could be defined as someone who would receive an impression of what they thought God was saying in the moment to the congregation. 

 To me, that is a very clear parallel to what it means to create.  There is plenty of craft, but it is also a process of waiting to receive.  If you can’t embrace this, you will never go deeper than the top of your head.  You can always tell when someone’s writing lives on the surface.  It’s the difference between saying “the river was shining bright” and saying “the Mississippi Delta was shining like a national guitar”. 

 Good writing, good art, requires a relationship. 

 In my own life, I try to embrace this albeit very imperfectly.  I’ve spent the last four years doing stand up.  Being part of the comedy scene in 2018 was kind of stressful for me.  I think I’m experiencing some type of growing pain. 

 I’m not a beginner anymore.  I’ve had some days in the sun, but I’m painfully aware how far up the mountain goes.  The unbearable part however is being around other creative people.  Like marriage, its heaven or hell based on you and the person next to you. 

 Being in a room full of talented hilarious hard working people is a high and one of my greatest joys.  But being around needy undisciplined would be artists some times makes me feel like I am drowing.  Not because I am better than them, but because I have just enough energy to keep my own head above the waves and keep kicking my feet.  If you aren’t pushing, I can’t carry you.  Not because I don’t want to help, but because I am not strong enough to pull us both to shore.  Also, the people who want your help the most are often doing the least.  You can’t help them.  Their resistance is so strong that even outside intervention can’t save them.  They are their own anchor. 

 To be great, you have to separate from your chaos. 

 Art can come from your chaos, but your chaos is not art.  I think I’m starting to realize how much I’ve relied on my drama instead of my craft.  They are two distinctly separate things.  My drama can sometimes lead to art, but my craft can make art ten out of ten times blindfolded. 

 In the beginning, I think its ok to use whatever you have to to get that joke written or that song finished.

 But after a while, you have to learn to stratify the part of you that makes and the part of you that lives.  There is a different between the forest that grows trees and the factory that makes the raw material into paper.  Of the two, the only one you have absolute control over is your factory.  The raw materials may change but your skills don’t have to. 

 I think people assume the chaos is outside of them.  This is almost never true.  The problem is that you are the chaos.  You are the one allowing the distraction.  And once you remove this traitorous instinct, you can really get things done. 

You Are Probably Not Enough

Happy New Years dear reader. I hope you had a good one and the paper top hats and noise makers were plentiful. Today is our first day in 2019. Everyone is still hungover. The fitness couples have already got their run in. The world is starting over.

This is the time of year when people, albeit briefly, examine their lives. In that examination period, we often come up short.

One of the things I think about a lot is the way people try to sooth themselves when they feel that lack. Life is filled with hardship, and we all need to believe it will be alright. But sometimes, its this belief that is standing directly in the way of you making things alright.

There are a 1000 different memes floating in the internet with the mantra that “you are enough”. I disagree.

I don’t think you are enough, and I think it would be weird if you were.

Are you enough to deserve love and respect no matter who you are? Absolutely. Do you have untold intrinsic value just by being here on the planet? Yes you do.

But at the same time, what does it even mean to be enough?

In my ear, I see it as people who feel inferior reassuring themselves. Reassurance is a human need, I know I need it often.

But one thing i think about is whatever I am doing now is probably ok for now but needs to grow.

The way I handle my money needs to change. My nuance in dealing with the people I love needs to improve. My understanding of my passions like Jiu Jitsu or stand up or writing all desparately need to grow.

I am enough for today, but I am not objectively for all time enough in these pursuits.

I want to be an ever expanding universe. I don’t believe in creationism, and I don’t believe in things having fixed ability. I believe in the evolution of people.

My theory is that in every area you feel you are not enough, there are probably two things happening that need to be addressed. Number one is you have an ego concern that is valid or a need for love. Number two is some part of you recognizes you are lacking.

The first is hard to deal with. The second is easy. What ever you are lacking can be improved on. It can be rehearsed, it can be refined. Part of my virtues are reactions to people who found me wanting. And somehow, their summation that I am not enough put an energy in me that stayed until I not only reached that bar but became more than enough.

I am only interested in things I can control. I don’t mean people, I mean inside of me. I can’t do anything about how I was raised. I can do everything about how I raise myself. I can’t do anything about my genetics, but I can jog.

Its ok to not be enough, its an invitation to be something beautiful.

Happy new year.

Also, if you enjoy my writing, please consider buying my debut book “Pillar of Salt” for yourself or a friend.

Delete Your History

My buddy Hagan and I were talking about how painful Facebook’s “on this day” post reminder thing is.

How many times do you see that come up and feel a strange distance between who you are now and who you were. Its amazing how our attitudes, expectations, even word usage change.

Whoever I am now is standing on a giant mound of all the me’s I used to be.

Child me, Blues Traveler is the best band ever me, speaking in tongues me, saving my virginity for marriage me, ignorant me, raw nerve me, Danish student me, bitter me, moving back into my mother’s house broke me, slut me, monogamy me, etc..

Some of those rolls will come back around and that is ok. Some of those will never come back.

When I am sad, or anxious, it feels like all the worst versions loom around the house. Like a pile of goodwill clothes I have yet to surrender to one of those modified dumpsters. I look at them and I am reminded of history, and the chore of getting rid of them and I put them off for another day.

If this year has taught me one thing, it has taught me that if I want to have a better 2019, there is a lot of 1983-2018 that can’t come with.

I am in my bones a very earnest person. Maybe its the Christian roots, maybe its the Scorpio, maybe its the desire to be liked. I have always and I mean always been trying my best and trying to be good to people.

Like you, some times that has worked for me, other times against me. We all fall from our own ideals.

But now, I’m starting to see the value of deleting the past.

What I don’t mean is forgetting the lessons. I don’t mean covering up mistakes. What I mean is releasing the gnawing desire to balance the budget of who you were. There are some things that will never resolve. The need for resolution can drive you mad. But its a false expectation that all things are entitled to have a satisfying ending.

When I was a musician, I used to be reminded of songs I wrote early on and it was absolutely torturous how clearly I remember every note of my bad songs. Part of me would want to rework them. Not because I believed in them, but as a way to save myself from the pain of my own judgement.

This year, my goal is to delete shit like that. Show mercy for myself and for who I used to be. To use that revisionist energy and put it in a more productive direction. Which is right now.

2019 for me is letting shit go, traveling as light as possible, trying to make the invisible visible, only putting my hands on things I believe in.

For all the people who have supported me this year and in years past, you have all my love and I carry you everywhere.

If you like what I write, did you know I wrote a book? For real, check it out here.

On The Giving Of Credit

Whoever you are that is reading this, we have at least one thing in common: we owe people and we are owed by others.

Relationships have their own form of accounting. There are invisible transactions going over our head all time. Some of them are immediate, and some won’t hit the account until way later.

I recently posted about turning 35, and all the feelings I had of letting go of the need to broadcast to a few people in my life. People that I could never draw back. Some old lovers but not all. The concept of owing and being owed is in every form of human bond.

There are two ways we hold on to the past. The first is through our own lack of giving. There is some kind of last good we owe them. Some kind of last rite of love we have not performed.

The other way we hold on is when we are owed or believe we are owed. When people say “nobody owes you shit,” that makes for a great meme or motivational poster in a Planet Fitness gym, but it’s not true.

People do owe you. And you owe them.

But chances are the budget will never be balanced. Chances are they will never return with the credit you desire. Why? I don’t know. I think the desire to put flowers on the grave makes people afraid the past will reach up through the dirt. Sometimes the past is best kept there. If the past keeps coming back to you, perhaps this is a test. You may have some accounting to do.

The other option is the Jubilee. The Jubilee year in Hebrew culture was almost like the opposite of the Purge. Instead of being a day to exact revenge, the Jubilee occurred once every fifty years. In the year of Jubilee, all debts were forgiven. All lands were restored to their owner, and all slaves and prisoners were freed.

In my life, I try to give credit where it is due as much as I can. I do this because more than most, I am aware of my own mortality. I am aware that one day my Facebook page will be a place for people to say how they can’t believe I’m gone and how much they are going to miss me and then they’ll scroll on to the next thing in their newsfeed.

I don’t want to die with all of my words to them trapped in my body. I want to empty out my good and leave all my accounts square before the end, whenever that is.

This week I’m reminded of the people I feel or know owe me something. Whatever it is, and whether they ever pay it is none of my concern. I don’t want to keep those records anymore. It’s a hard habit to break. In the giving of credit, we give back some fragment of identity. But maybe the skill is to grow back whatever was taken.

Maybe they need that piece of you more than you do.

You Don't Have To Be A Franchise

I am some kind of artist. I don’t even know really. I used to think I was a musician, but it never seemed to matter enough. I made acceptable music that some people liked and a few people loved. It felt like failure at the time. I am now a comedian. Even saying that sounds weird. I think I’m funny, but I know that there are many doors left to open in my head and I doubt all of them say comedy. I want to take stand up as far as I can. I’m interested in learning what my limits are. But if I hit wall so big or so boring that I don’t want to scale it, I will find something else.

Theres an impulse in my brain to make things. Some of those things are long continuous pieces of work like a tapestry. Others are spur of the moment street musician type life spans.

One thing I’ve learned is to resist the urge to franchise things. What i mean by that is to get carried away thinking what the work I am currently doing will add up to.

Its ok to make things as a one off. Its ok to make things for their own sake. In the same way not every business will be around for a hundred years, not every pursuit has a long life span and that is fine.

Sometimes we have to journey somewhere else as creative people. But there are two types of journeys. Ones where you come back. Thats called a vacation. And ones where you never come back, thats called moving. Both are acceptable.

I know a lot of people who stop themselves from starting things because they have one idea, and they think they need a series.

No. you. fucking. don’t.

And to be honest, your first idea probably isn’t that great any way. But you take it, you work it, and you trust that the next one will drop into your heart on the correct day.

Ideas are like cats. They want to interact with you when you are in the middle of something. They don’t want your attention, they want to catch you off guard, doing something that matters.

Its lie that your idea or your pursuit has to be novel, or duplicatable, or sellable, or franchise-able.

Just make shit.

And in the making, maybe you will get some love. Maybe you will get a lot of love. Maybe you will receive no love. But the process of making will ease the grasping unease that all back sliding artists feel.

Older Than My Older Brother- The End Of An Era

Today is my birthday and I am happy. I always feel lucky on my birthday. For me, birthdays are a type of personal new years eve. I have the head space to look at what I like about myself. Most of the time I am not doing that. Most of the time I’m obsessed with the gap between where I am and what I think I should be. I think thats fine, but being able to enjoy what you are doing is the only reason to be alive. So today I’m happy.

I’m also happy because this birthday is very important. I am now older than my older brother Bradley. He passed 7 years ago at the age of 34. Somewhere deep in my mind I had built the boogey man that something would happen to me before or around my 34th. 34 was the buzzer going off.

Waking up today as a 35 year old I think I was right, but maybe not how I envisioned. When my brother died, I felt the only pure way to grieve him was to conquer in his memory. I remember writing a list of all the things he dreamed of that now he would never do, and i vowed to do my version of those things. I have kept that vow.

The men in my immediate family are remarkably different but the elements that we are comprised of are so strongly united. Men in my family are funny, independent, martial artists mostly, thinkers, survivors, teachers, musicians, and maybe a little vain but still interested in people.

I’ve taken the theme I inherited and I have contributed my own verse. I don’t want to say the last seven years have been one long shout out but in some ways they have.

Trying to reincarnate myself after my brother died. Feeling like I had to prove my ex wrong for the ways I fell short in her eyes. Feeling like I had to prove my Norwegian ex right for her faith in me, living with a narrative that I would become so shiny that whatever we had would reassemble like a locket, trying to draw the fractured pieces of my family back to me like my other brother and father. Theres a broadcast that has gone out of me to people I love, to people I miss, to people I wish would come back to me, to people who I deserve something from but will never receive, a few people I hate, and people I want to honor for the role they played in my life.

Living under power lines.

Today I wake up and I feel like the rest of my life is mine. I can’t impress these old moving targets and live the life I was made for. One has to die. You can’t serve god and mammon and you can’t serve your past and your future. One has to be put to bed.

This weekend I was at a wedding for an old friend of Bradley. It was beautiful day and I had the surreal experience to spend time with my brother’s closest friends. I say surreal because in this room, I am not Joseph, but Joseph, Bradley’s little brother. That never happens to me ever. All the spaces I occupy now are mine. I am no one’s anything. The wedding was fun just for that. I love being reminded of where I come from and the people that are apart of the narrative.

But I think finally at long last, I am my own man. I might die young like my sister and brother, or just maybe, I will cruise into old age full of late nights and adventure and a shitty back but a full memory card of beauty. I’m ok regardless. I will always be ok. I will make myself ok. I will walk to the end and do my best to be better than the previous me.

The Wave & The Locksmith

Three things I’ve known about myself forever but only recognized lately: my mind thinks in pictures/metaphors, I have recurring nightmares of being in places of depression with no ability to choose, any hash browns made by a friend will always be gross. They just can’t get it right.

I’ve recently finished a renovation project that turned into an air bnb project. I am elated. I tried to use it as a rental but it didn’t work out, but the air bnb thing is cruising along just fine. I’m still amazed at being done with it. The stress of the rennovation is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It was a tandem stress of having to do something I have never seen myself as competent at and of course the grasping ubiquitous fear and necessity of money.

Now that its done, its given me some time to consider my built in methods of handling big projects.

Maybe its the ADD, but I am best at the beginning and end of things. I can usually get a vision of what it could be quickly. And I am just brave enough or dumb enough to launch myself into the unknown. But the middle is a motherfucker.

This is where the man that I call my step dad Jon comes in. He is one of the strangest men I have ever met. Born in Brooklyn in the 40’s, he lived through several ages of New York life. The mob era, the crazy ass 70-80s era, the approach to the millennium But at all times, he was more or less just doing his thing. Working his business, reading his bible, drinking coffee out of his thermos, taking care of his property and cruising along.

Jon is a constant inspiration of how to get things done.

I am a wave. I am an emotional person. I throw myself at things. Its my best side. I overwhelm them with my intensity til I accomplish what I want. But if a wave hits a deadbolt and doesn’t knock the door off the hinges, eventually the wave subsides, drains, and takes a long time to rebuild its power and height.

Jon is a locksmith. He comes in when you need help, and you never guess what he is. He is willing to stand outside the door and cycle through solutions. He tries one pick, he tries another. He fails, he talks shit to the lock, telling it its gonna work for Jonny. He takes none of the problems personally. This is will never not be profound to me.

Without the autistic brilliance, I keep Sherlock Holmes type hours/work ethic. Lounging, depressive, followed by bursts of ideas with a mind on fire, staying up late and waking up early hot in pursuit.

Jon is the tortoise, he wakes up at 8, makes coffee in his kitchen, works til 12. Eats a super lame cheese sandwich, goes back to work. Then he does that every single day til he accomplishes what he sets out to.

There is a place for waves, and there is a place for locksmiths. The ocean would suck if it was made of metal pretending to the wave. And the wave would be the worst choice for home repair unless you want the whole house carried away.

But developing the capacity for both inside of you is the secret of work ethic. Carry the wave, and carry the lock picks. You never know what you’ll need.

Pillar Of Salt

I am a sentimental person. It doesn’t show up on the chart in a Hallmark way like it does for other people but it is there all the same. Sentimentality is an attempt to attach to the spirit of a thing. Its the grasping at the inanimate. Its an attempt to honor a moment. Its a good instinct. Its a good practice.

Moments are not created equal. Most don’t matter, and some weigh 1000 pounds, and the funny thing is we don’t get to choose. Ever go to lift a couch and expect it to be bulky only to realize its an easy job? That is how big days feel to me some times. I excpect this day to feel one way and it surprises me. Or I expect this day to hurt and it barely grazes me. Thank god for the surprises. It would be torture to always be right. If you’re always right you’re probably not aware.

My whole life I’ve had something in me that rebels against the group. Which is weird because I was a religious man for 13 years. I consider myself an ‘opposite hipster’. If the definition of a hipster is someone who can only enjoy something before other people do, I enjoy discovering things most when other people have walked away from them. I didn’t get into Harry Potter until 4 books into the series. I didn’t get into Netflix or the iPhone or you name it til way later.

I think its hard for me to not be influenced by the people around me, so I have to work hard to block it out. I love being influenced when I am conscious of it, but I have always wanted to be aware of what goes in.

This opposite hipster thing affects how I am sentimental too. I don’t see things at the same speed. I see way ahead or way behind. The moment is a blur. I think I am a hard person to influence. Maybe just stubborn.

Part of that is religion. If you feel like you got suckered once, your dukes will be up forever.

In Genesis, god turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt because she looked back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that they had been saved from. Some say that the phrase pillar of salt meant she was infertile, but either way, pretty harsh punishment. Salt kills a field, but it preserves meat. it stings in a wound or melts ice.

I think looking back is the same. Its hard to know what its affect on you will be.

80%

I think I was 32 before I thought of myself as smart. Its a strange and dubious thing to try and gauge your own intelligence. Everyone knows that there are different manifestations of our brain power. and they are all needed to make the world go round.

I realized at 32 I was smart because I hurt my back so bad that I couldn’t train for a year, and thus had no physical anything to self identify with. I had the time to examine who I was separate from my body and it was a healing process. I think it surprised me because my life is devoid of many of the external markers of intelligence. I never qualified for the gifted and talented program as a kid, my SAT score was shit, and I never really went to college.

My whole life, I attributed any success I had to the rare levels of compulsive learning I can force myself into when under great stress. I was the opposite of a natural learning to speak Danish, but the difference between me and other students was I would do craaaazy shit. One time, I got so mad at encountering verbs in Danish that I didn’t recognize that I made note cards of every verb in the language and their 10 tenses. Pyscho.

I figured because I could do things like that, I wasn’t necessarily smart but I could get by, like the white guy on a basket ball team who never misses a free throw.

If I had to quantify myself I would say I’m gifted at getting to the 80% level of things. When I learn things, I don’t dabble. I have to reach an objective and recognizable level of skill that is way above average but not yet a master.

I think this point is such a natural goal to get to because its no fun to suck at things. But also, at the 80% level, you know whether the rest of something is worth your time. Also, the last 20% may take the rest of your life to acquire.

In my 20’s, I fell in love with the harmonica. I was a huge Blues Traveler nerd when i was teenager, and John Popper meant a lot to me. Then one day it occurred to me that I could also learn it. I got really into a modern harmonica player named Jason Ricci. I started playing harmonica all the god damn time. I would stay up late listening to early pre-war harp masters and picking things up by ear. Pretty sure I annoyed the shit out of a lot of people with it. I went from no knowledge to self teaching my way to being able to play in any blues band and not look out of place.

Then at some point, I looked around and realized I had gotten good, but that the only people who bought harmonica albums were other harmonica players and I started to play way less.

In my heart, I have always wanted to find things that look just as good at 80% as they do at the beginning. A few of those have stayed with me. Jiu Jitsu, stand up comedy is currently one, etc..

As I write this, I wonder if the other side of this is some kind of defense mechanism. If you don’t get to 100%, then you can’t waste your life. As someone who has dedicated himself to mirages before, thats probably some kind of fear of mine. I’m always looking for people, places and things that don’t wear out.

The End Illuminates The Beginning

My brother Bradley told me that one time in summer school, he started a tiny mutiny when he discovered that the teacher had finalized their grades weeks ago and was burdening them with paper after paper to keep them busy. He told me all the kids went crazy for a few moments and were ripping up their papers and foot notes and throwing shit at each other. They eventually came to heel after a threat of getting the principle, but this story is one of my favorites of his.

Lately I have begun the intellectual exercise of thinking about making big changes. Not trying to be cryptic about it but right now they are thoughts and not plans so I don’t want to get a lot of input about it yet. I’m examining what I want and what I need to do to get it. My whole life I have been most afraid of wasting time and being held back by some flaw in my blind side. Not that I don’t have plenty of flaws right in front of me, but sometimes its the trouble you don’t see that does a real number on you.

One thing I have found interesting though is that your clarity seems to be most potent at the end of something. I’ll never forget the last few weeks of living in Denmark. It was emotional. It was beautiful, and it was the end of an era. Better than I ever did, I understood my failures and my attempts and not just as objective pursuits but the why behind them. The bird’s eye view was strong as the nostalgia. Knowing you are leaving makes me you see what you are leaving again as if for the first time. Relationships, countries, jobs, dreams, whatever. The last song makes you understand the whole dance.

So if you feel you are at the end of something, know that your brain is most alive picking up data to aide you in what will be your next adventure.

Playing Hurt

Most of the big “look how good I’m doing” moments of my life have been counterpointed by pain.

In 2016, I headlined for the first time at Ms. Roses. I had never done that much time before and nay sayers (and myself as well) were not convinced I could do it. To make matters worse, the day before, I got a call from a chiropractor that he saw an MRI of my back (I was in daily constant grinding pain) and he told me I needed immediate surgery. He said that another quick injury could lead to loss of bladder control. Fucked up, terrifying information for a more or less healthy 32 year old to get on the best of days. Even worse the day before the biggest gig of your baby comedy career where you are expected to be funny.

Long story short, the show was an undeniable and thoroughly enjoyable success. It sold out, I crushed, and more than anything, I felt in tune with myself and the crowd. It was a high. In time my back got better without surgery (fuck all chiropractors, they have no idea what they are talking about).

There are some things that we know and yet each time we learn it its as if we never heard it before. Music is like this, Jiu Jitsu is like this, people’s personality’s are like this. We remember what we forgot what we remembered.

For me, the thing that I am remembering is that my experience of something is different from the thing itself. That is both terrifying and extremely helpful.

I’ve had a hard year. I started it riding high and enjoying the recent sale of my house and looking forward to renovating the new place with plenty of money and time. Then a partner pulled out of the deal with no heads up and it put me into a huge hole. The scope of which only got bigger as I kept pushing on. I’ve been broke most of the year. Not no food broke you should worry about me broke, but no rest from the stress of money broke. It won’t last, I will prevail and already am, but for me, how I am doing with money is directly tied to my self worth in a way that can only be explained by my upbringing and the hurts I’ve collected on my journey to here.

I’ve competed this year. Another thing that is out of character for me. I low key hate competing in Jiu Jitsu. I hate so much of it. But I know its a shortcut to growth. In May, I got my ass beat so bad at a competition that I was embarrassed to talk to my teammates for a few minutes after the match.

In comedy, its been a mixed bag. I’m doing more and bigger shows, and yet I feel dissatisfied at times. I feel the need to reach for something bigger that can help me grow more.

These are just the externals of my life. There has been a storm of ups and downs with people near and far. Fair and unfair cool and seriously not cool things. Tiring and good.

This year in short has been uncomfortable. Most of the time, its felt like shit was falling apart. Or barely taped together. I’ve spent a lot of time distracting myself as a coping mechanism.

I find that when I am succeeding, I work fast and hard. I decide quickly. When I am broke or feel like I am failing, the factory grinds almost to a halt. Its the best example of how we all in some way are masters at working against ourselves.

I don’t know how this year will feel when it ends, but I can say with pride that what it has been is a success regardless of my experience of it. I have with lots of mistake and help from friends/family rennovated a property and learned a lot in the process. I won two tournaments that I didn’t expect to. I got my brown belt. I am aiming at big things with comedy/arts.

The year for inward me has been troubling, the year for long term me will be one for the books. Thats got to count for something.

Taxidermy

I read that the average person can remember about 150 friend’s names. After that, its hard to keep it straight without some kind of prompt. But imagine all the people you have met in your life, and spent a day or several days or a season with. Its an ocean. On a macro scale, we understand that we can’t keep everyone.

One of the biggest reliefs of my life was after becoming spiritually indifferent. As a Christian I had this terrible burden that I was supposed to be reaching people. Part of reaching them was influence, and part of that process was monitoring if they were changing.

I’ll never forget the relief I felt that I didn’t have to believe for other people any more.

It was a weight off my should to just think “you’re a bastard, and you’re probably never gonna change, prove me wrong…on your own time”.

That may sound harsh, but the alternative is basically a blank check of abuse.

There is a beauty and an art to cutting off the dead things.

In bible culture they would call this pruning.

I guess for me, I am a very all or nothing person. I always forget I have a choice.

I don’t HAVE to commit to long shots. I can do whatever I want at any time.

There will be consequences, but yes I can.

I can drive to Cali and start doing porn. I could go to seminary. I could drive my car off a bridge. I could teach free Jiu Jitsu to every impoverished school in my neighborhood.

Something about the high and low contrast reminds me that I am powerful. Not all powerful, but powerful enough.

If you find yourself slogging, if you find your progress slowing, its probably because you are dragging some dead things.

Dead things can be beautiful. Taxidermy is an art.

But don’t lie to yourself about whether something is living or just life like.

There is a freedom in recognizing the finality of things. Because as every hack songwriter knows, the end of something means the beginning of something else.

The end is final, you can’t influence it. The beginning could change the universe.

How To ReGrow Your Attention Span

I’ve never been officially diagnosed, but I’ve long suspected that I had some type of ADD. In the book “Driven To Distraction”, I learned that ADD does not mean someone can’t focus, it just means that there brain is different. In the book, they describe the ADD brain as having a Ferrari engine and bicycle breaks. Boy oh boy do I get that.

As I’ve gotten older, and especially as I moved back to America, my attention span has gotten worse. I had a very different life in Denmark. I had a flip phone, I didn’t run a business. When I moved back to Charleston, the demand to start building a life here both as a entrepreneur and as an artist required me to mesh myself with technology. Lots of good comes from this, and lots of interruptions too.

Lately, I have been really struggling. Anything to do with people and I’m good. But sitting down to make flyers for a show or do office work for my business and its like I am holding my breath until I am done.

Genetics or brain aside, I know that there are things I can do to re-grow my focus so to speak so I’m working on that. This is what I have learned so far. Note: I am not expertly doing any of these things, but they are my new ideals and from what I have read, help a lot.

1. Do one thing at a time

2. Eliminate distractions in your environment

3. Meditate

1. Do one thing at a time

   We all think we can multi-task, and the truth is, we can’t. There may be some people who can, but from what I am reading, the people who think they are best at multi-tasking are the ones who are the worst at it. When we multi-task, we feel good, but it doesn’t mean we are getting lots of things done. Its like when you think of writing a thank you card that you don’t really have to. You think to yourself about how thoughtful you are, then you don’t do it and completely forget. How you feel is different from what you accomplish.

   I do think there are things that pair well together. For me, I like to do complex things like writing or office work paired with relaxing things like ASMR videos or soundtrack music.

   And I like to pair low level tasks like cleaning or manual labor with complex background things like audio books, rap or even TV.

   I’m working on this right now, but so far, forcing myself to do just one thing from start to finish is really helpful.

2. Eliminate Distractions In Your Environment

When I teach my kids classes, I have to ask people on the sidelines every now and then to keep it down. This isn’t because I want to be rude or a control freak, actually, I hate doing it. But the reason I do it is because most children’s focus is a fragile thing. A kid walking in the room can pull the gaze of the entire class as if the circus just paraded down the street.

Our attention span is kind of like a class full of kids. When we do easy engaging stuff, focusing is a synch. When we learn complex skills like Jiu Jitsu, we need all the damn help we can get.

So eliminate distractions. Clean up, turn off your phone or set the notifications on silent. Put everything out of sight expect the things you need to accomplish what you are doing.

I know this to be true because there is a part of me that is micro depressed when I walk by undone tasks in my house. I have had that bottle of Goo Gone on my kitchen counter for 2 weeks now. I am no closer to using it on that spot in the carpet, and seeing it makes me sad. Better to put it away and do other things then come back to it. Don’t bottleneck your focus.

3. Mediate

This is the one I am most interested in. Not because I want to mediate mind you. I am not looking for the truth, I am not even trying to be more gratful or mindful. But from what I’ve read meditating is like lifting weights for your concentration. The paradox is that focusing on nothing can help you later focus on anything. Right now I try to do 10 minutes a day. I go on youtube and look up 10 minute mediation and I sit in my floor or on my bed and I go for it. I want to build up to 20 minutes, we will see.

Distracted people are fascinating to me. Because they are working in some ways from a deficit. It would be like if you worked in one of those pursuit of Happiness type sales call boiler room jobs but your phone only has 20% juice to it. Well you best believe you are going to make way more calls in that 20% and be way more persuasive in that time than the other guys because you have to. But what if you could have your phone charged to 30%? How much could your life change with 10% more focus? How much better would your relationships or Jiu Jitsu or writing be?

I hope to find out, we will see :) I’m not opposed to taking some kind of medication, I know many motivated cool people who do. But part of me suspects that some of my problem is habitual and environmental. I’ll start here first and see where I get.

Outskirts Of Love

I do a bit in my stand up about the way sex was described to me as a young impressionable Christian boy. The bit goes “In youth group, I was told, that every time you have sex with someone you give them a piece of your soul. That isn't Christianity by the way, thats the plot from Harry Potter 6.”

It always gets a small laugh, I love that joke. However lately, I feel like the joke has slowly turned on me.

Ever since being jettisoned out of the Christian life in my late 20’s, I had a lot to learn about myself, sex, other people, what things meant. It was a lot to take in, and most of the things I used to believe were not helpful in the slightest.

On my way, I tried to make my own code of ethics. I strived to be wiser and better from all interactions.

A lot of this time I have chosen, for the most part, to not be in official relationships. I’m at the phase of life now where people go from dating to pregnancy or marriage faster because they feel the anxious creep of time. But because I already have one big love attempt on my record I kinda don’t feel that. Also, I see so many half assed relationships. I think I’m also a very all or nothing person. Also also, for all of my thirties, i’ve been in an arms race against my self doubt to build a life I can be proud of and recognize as a success.

There is a dumb saying you see on Facebook that says “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. I’ve always bristled at that. My mentality has always been, how about I go far and fast all by my goddamn self?

There is something about being with other people that clouds your priorities. It doesn’t happen in big choices, but it is paid out over time. Until you look up years later and realized you are way off the course of what you wanted to be. It takes a lot of character to be in a relationship and still be who you truly wish to be. I’m not sure I have that strength yet and thats probably why I abstain.

I have had relationships though, and I guess I”m thinking about them this weekend of the hurricane.

Several years ago I was seeing a girl who had recently came out of a bad relationship. We were true friends and of course more. It was interesting because it was in a middle ground between hooking up but also listening to each other’s day. I knew it was not a forever thing, I think we both knew. But in its own way, thats what made it sweet. I cared about her and vice versa.

Then there came a day where she started to fall for a guy she met. I was genuinely happy for her. I encouraged it. I knew it meant whatever we were doing would end and I was ok with it. I knew this would mean she wouldn’t be texting me late or joking about dumb shit and I knew I was going to bow out and make a hopefully graceful exit.

The thing that caught me off guard was how she deleted all memory of everything. We were always on good terms, we cared about each other, I think we both served noble purposes in each others lives. But once the more stable and official thing came, all the files were shredded.

I wouldn’t want my new girlfriend or whatever to keep being best homey’s with some dude she was boning so I get it. Its the kind of relationship that is easy to oversimplify. But I’ll never forget texting her one day about some inocuous shit and she didn’t even reply. This was someone who praised me as the person that helped her out of the hardest of times and now had nothing to say. Again, I wasn’t expecting the same type of experience, but the silence was kinda jarring.

I think there is a part of me that is 100% ok with the fact that this will happen, and another part I’m recognizing as if for the first time is not ok with it. I feel like someone who is repairing the interior of beautiful boats. The purpose of a boat is to travel and move past the place it was repaired. But its hard for me because I honestly try to do my best work wherever I am in a relationship, and I enjoy the repairs that were done with me. I think when you truly care for someone and they for you, there is a lot of restorative energy that is exchanged. Its only unhealthy if it is one sided.

But now that is gone and I am left questioning what my time there was.

I’ll never forget one time a friend of my dad telling me how he was married several times when he was younger. He lamented that he never kept the pictures from that time of his life because his ex’s would trash them after the divorce. The saddest part is him saying that he couldn’t remember what his own face looked like in his twenties.

I have never forgotten that.

I wonder what I will remember from this time of my life. And I wonder what other people will remember from their time with me.

My only hope is that wherever I am, I am carrying my own weight and leaving people better for having known me, even if they take a piece of me with them. I want to be a good man here on the outskirts of love.

The Sub & Dom In All Of Us

The terms dom and sub come from the world of BDSM.  Dom is short for dominant, and sub is short for submissive.  This isn't something I know a lot about, but broadly speaking, whether you are a dom or a sub depends on if you derive pleasure from control or allowing someone to have control over you.  Its a way of describing where you enjoy being in a sexual power dynamic.  

But I always think of it in other contexts.  This will probably be a joke one day, but in all seriousness, I am a kitchen sub.  Its not that I can't cook, its just that I prefer someone to tell me exactly what to do and take the lead.  Its refreshing to know that I don't have to think of everything in this particular area of life.  When people talk about enjoying going to the grocery store, I have no idea what they are talking about.  

There is a term I learned of last year called decision fatigue.  Its the concept that people in positions of power or decision often take pleasure in not choosing.  Conversely, people who don't get to choose, understandably love having a choice.  I don't know if this is true, but maybe this is why nice restaurants have a highly dictated menu whereas Denny's can literally make you Spaghetti at 4 in the morning.  

We all get decision fatigue, so knowing where you want to decide is important.  

I think its important to know what areas you are a sub and where you are a dom.  Sexually sure, but I mean in the rest of your life too.

I know that when it comes to work and money, I am some kind of reluctant dom.  I hate having people exercise power over me.  I am a mediocre employee, but I am a highly motivated business owner.  

On the other hand, I know for as long as I live, I will never lift a kettle bell off the ground left to my own devices.  I just don't have it in me to push myself towards things like that.  Thats why in times past I've hired a personal trainer.  Just tell me what to do, how many reps, and when to stop.  I want to not be in charge. 

I know this sounds silly, but try it as a mental exercise.  I think knowing where you want to be in the power dynamic can make you happier and also help you save your diesel for the right pursuit.

Suck: the magical gate to getting awesome

Some of you guys may know that I recently received a belt promotion in Jiu Jitsu.  Honestly, it was cool for about three days, then I got very depressed about it.  I was a very good purple belt, but I am not yet a very good brown belt.  I feel the distance between me and people with less experience should be greater.  Like I should be some unimpeachable cloud of talent.  Its silly, but real.  

On my trip to New Mexico, I had the chance to reflect a lot, and I finally found a way that I can be a brown belt and be happy.  Basically, my plan is to suck for a while.  

In Jiu Jitsu, as you grow, it becomes very easy to steer the conversation of the match towards your strong points.  You have a bad guard so you try to keep it on the feet.  You are good off your back so you don't even try a takedown.  This is strategic and not wrong at all.  There are times for it.  Its ok to want to be in your strong positions. 

But if you're trying to grow, you can't only do that.  As much as you can, as much as you can tolerate it, you should try to spend your time in your opponents strong positions.  

This is hard hard hard on the ego.  If I keep the match in my good spots, I look good.  If I let my opponent get the things they want, they will drag me into a section of the sport in which I don't look good.  In which my ignorance or inadequacies shine.  

But that is the land of magic.  That is where everything opens up again.  That is where the joy of being kind of shitty at something comes back.  The only way to access that level of growth though is through the gate of suck.  You have to be willing to look like you suck to one day look like a badass.

Its hard, but it is possible to stay in dark til your eyes adjust, and learn the room, and then eventually find all the light switches.  Its a quiet humble type of patience.

My coach preaches this type of training mentality all the time, I'm just now incorporating it more fully.  

I'm sure you can tell that this is a life skill too.  And I'm reminded of it.  The weaknesses that have sabotaged my strengths don't have to be my enemies forever.  Not working on your weaknesses is like choosing to fight with your next door neighbors.  You protect your turf at all times, and you deathly afraid of something crossing that line.  But what if that next door neighbor was your best friend?  What if you could walk over there for dinner, stand in their yard, and see your own house and get a whole new understanding of your flaws and also your beauty?

Thats how I'm choosing to think of this, and I feel great.  I'm trying to examine other areas in which I've let the fear of being bad at something make me worse.  My whole life I've been afraid of being influenced by inadequacies that went unchallenged.  My only hope is to weed them out one by one. 

I've done some of that this year with competition and the renovation project, but lots more to go.  

Love Is A Museum Love Is A Hotel

This weekend, I had the surreal experience of watching two good friends marry each other and performing the ceremony.  It was my first time as an officiant, and it could not have been more genuine, and intimate and funny.  We were perched high up on a mountain view, about an hours drive from Santa Fe.  It was a perfect day.  Tess and Ben are one of those weddings its fun to be at because 1. I believe in them 2. they are hilariously good company.  Anyways, I wrote a little thing for their ceremony and I wanted to share it here as well.  Thanks guys for trusting me with such a task, and I look forward to seeing you on my turf soon :)

Love is a Museum Love is a Hotel

I’ve always heard that the biggest trigger of memory is location.

 Individually and collectively, you guys are so adventurous. As I’ve been thinking about this, I’ve had the thought that love is like a museum and love is like a hotel.

One of the functions of love is memory. We all desire someone to bear witness to our bravery. Someone for whom we don’t have to make introductions. Somewhere we can take our name tag off and be ourselves. Love is willingly choosing to be the cloud of memory that the years will be uploaded into.

As you guys grow together, you will build a museum together. Filled with a timeline of success, of struggle, of commitment. I’m so honored to be here with you for one such day, but there will be many to come. As you get older, this museum will help tell the story of who you were to each other and to all those who come after you. Your museum will be beautiful.

Love is also a hotel room.

In every person and in every relationship is a need to be reborn.

One thing I’ve always believed is that hotels are fascinating because they are nameless places. There are no indicators of history there, non descriptive rooms. You could be anywhere in the world there, and you could be anyone in the world.

We all carry in us many people. Sometimes they exist together, sometimes they come out sequentially. In the same way we pass from child to adult to old age, we take on different characteristics as we grow in relationship.

The hotel is a symbol of transition. It represents a place of travel and change. As you guys move through life together. Some things will fall off of you. Somethings will stay. No matter how much these changes seem scary, they are inevitable and should be celebrated.

I hope that when those moments come, you guys will make room in a hotel for each other to evolve. To travel and to return to each other as needed. Love is a museum and love is a hotel. And my hope and belief for you Tess and you Ben is that you always have these two directions to move in.

Chance may have played a roll in bringing you together, but self awareness, kindness, and love will keep you there. Everyone here is here because they believe in you. As a community we support you, and we will be there to love you no longer just as individuals but as one cohesive unit of measurement.

Love is a museum and love is a hotel.  

The power of Love is knowing what to remember and what to forget

Scoreboards

Not long after my brother died, I had a dream about him.  In the Christian culture I was in, dreams carried a significant weight.  The interpretation of them even more so.  I didn't want to dream of Bradley.  I somehow knew that dream Bradley was going to be a hologram of real Bradley.  And I wanted to savor the last few moments of remembering what he sounded like and the last thing we talked about before it was replaced with an idol of love.  

Nevertheless, a couple months later, I dreamed the following:  I was walking in a beautiful old neighborhood, it looked like California.  As I was walking, I noticed Bradley was beside me.  He pointed out a drive way with an old classic car, we noticed it and kept walking.  At some point I looked at him and all he said with a smile was "ah buddy".  

I woke up in Copenhagen.  I had returned there after his funeral and was trying to make my life over there function.  It took me a while to unpack why the dream made me sad.  It was a good one.  He was happy and we were together.  Before this, I had had nightmares.  I dreamed I saw him walk into a room in his burial suit, covered in dirt and graying skin.  Claiming it was harder to get into heaven than we had assumed.  That was fucked.  

But this dream was comforting in its own way.

The reason it made me sad was because of the way I felt in the dream.  When I looked at my brother, I didn't have to explain myself.  I didn't have to footnote about my family, my ambitions, the narrative was already understood, appreciated and he was expectant for new chapters.

My brother was my scoreboard.  We were each others.  But he was definitely mine.  I took all my triumphs and bad days to him and we sorted them out like change in a coin star.  Losing him was many things, but it was the loss of the dopamine around my accomplishments. 

When I teach kids, I try very hard to use my reactions to reward their behavior.  They intentionally do something wrong, I tell them.  They fix it, I celebrate.  They independently hit a complex move in live training, I yell at them how good it was.  I want them to know I'm watching and recognizing.  I guess I do that because that is one of the things I am working, to be recognized by people I value.  

Another score board for me was my ex that lives in Europe that I met after my marriage ended.  When we broke up, it was more about timing and circumstances.  We loved each other, but the world was pushing us in two different places.  However, knowing her left this wish inside of me.  I wanted to prove her right.  I wanted to go back to America and become rich or famous or both.  And prove that her love and faith in me wasn't wasted.  I think thats why it took me a long time to let go and still think about her.  I'm waiting to see the points go off on that scoreboard.  

Thats the harsh thing I guess.  Sometimes scoreboards move.  They are no longer there where you are playing the game, they were always multifaceted beings.  

We are all looking for someone to bear witness to our bravery.  To know our game and why some things matter and others don't.  Being a good scoreboard is one of the functions of love.   

Ordeal

I'm going to tell you something that will blow your mind.  One time I read a book that made my back stop hurting.

In 2016, I was training Jiu Jitsu with my buddy Eddie at the gym, I bridged to escape, and immediately knew something was wrong.  In my lower back, I had the peculiar feeling that my back was like a TV channel that got cut and now was displaying snow.  

For the next year solid, I would be in various stages of complete agony.  And I mean agony.  Face changing, future clouding pain.  

The worst thing about being in pain is everyone's advice.  Under normal circumstances, I actually love advice.  I always want to be better, and I assume I have bind sides.  But when it comes to back injuries, everyone's advice was mostly shit.

In no particular order: yoga, ice, heat, let me pray for it, this chiropractor, weed, that chiropractor, foam roller, this stretch, hot tub, hemp oil, etc.

All these things have their place, all these things can help, but pretty much none of them helped.  

There are some things that hurt so much that no quick answer will help.  When we give people all well wishes, it always seems like a perishable good.  Its unfortunate that there isn't some word or expression for "this will hurt for a long time, I'm aware of that, and I wish you good vibes anyway".

I got really scared.  I couldn't put my right foot on the ground for months without pain.  I couldn't sit without pain.  Every activity of my life now had to consult with my injury before it got permission to proceed.  At one point, I got an MRI.  

I'll never forget getting a call from the doctor telling me that I needed back surgery and I needed it yesterday.  I was at my friend Beth's house when I got the call and all the wind was knocked out of me.  I remember going out that night to do a stand up show, having a good set, then going outside to cry in the street.  It was hard days.

As I get older, I have learned to appreciate but also laugh at my own peculiarity.

I've learned that for whatever reason, I at all times must have a circus of ambition in the town of my life.  Some big loud distracting purpose that requires a lot of me.  Maybe its an overcompensation, maybe its a good use of time.  You will have to buy a ticket and see for yourself.  

Case in point, while I was in all this pain, I decided to travel to New York to record an EP with my dream producer Roger Greenawalt.  I told him I was going through hard times with my back and might not be able to come because of a surgery.  He recommended a book called Healing Your Back by Dr. John Sarno.  

I read the book, and no bullshit, my pain symptoms went down dramatically.  I was not cured.  I would still hurt for a long time and need PT and other precautions, but something changed.  

In his book, he explains that there are pretty much two things that heal backs, time and blood flow.  That the back is strange in that pain and level of damage don't always correlate.  For instance, you could be hurting but not be that bad off.  Conversely, you could feel fine and be structurally on the brink of real trouble.  

But the thing that made a huge impact on me was his thoughts on surgery.  He talked about how there are documented cases of people having back surgery, coming out feeling perfectly cured, only to find out later that the surgeons never even got to the problem area.  So why does the person feel so good?  

The concept of ordeal.

An ordeal is a semi-voluntary painful experience that we subject ourselves to in order to attain some relief from pain or trouble.  

Your back is hurting, so you let someone cut you open to fix it.  Your brain tells you that now you deserve to feel good and just starts acting accordingly.  Its crazy. 

In medieval times, priests would conduct trials by ordeal.  The concept was that the righteous and the guilty alike would go through some tortuous experience, and God would protect the innocent from death or injury.  Putting your hand in a pot of boiling water, taking poison, drowning, etc.. you had to suffer to prove your innocence.  

Ordeals are baked into a lot of religions and group think.  In Jiu Jitsu, when you get a new belt, the entire class forms two lines and whips you like a mule as you slowly walk between them.  

In Scientology, auditors dig through your painful memories making you recount them again and again until they think they have removed the root of the problem which they call an engram (thanks youtube for teaching me this).

I think at the heart of all healing is a willing subjection to pain.  The obstacle is the way as they say.  In order to feel good, some times you have to subject yourself to feeling terrible.