What Else? Pt. II

What else?
Never waste a night tossing and turning. Take a walk or take a valium. But a poor night’s sleep is too dreadful to suffer through.

What else...
We age. It's true. I never used to believe it. but I do now. we don't notice it. but other people do. the older we get, the faster time seems to pass. Remember when we were young and the summer would just crawl by? It took forever till Christmas arrived again. and now.... forget about it. you know what? We get old. Its really true. and time just starts flying by... I just never thought it would happen to me. But I'm watching it happen to me and all of my friends. It’s a fucking tragedy and a curse.

Just because you're generous with others doesn’t mean that others are going to be generous with you. back in my first year of college, white bear sat me down one day. I was 17, and he was about 22. there were four of us sharing an apartment. “Listen Fishy I have to talk to you man. You're really generous with everyone. You are more than generous. And that's great. But that doesn’t mean that other people are going to be generous like you...” “what are you talking about dude?” “O.k. Fishy, its like this. I know this is your first year and all, but you can’t think that because you don’t care who eats your food, that you can just go in everyone’s cabinet when you get home at night and eat all their food. Everyone's freaking out. this isn't like you're living at your parents house anymore, you know what I mean?” I'll never forget that conversation. White bear was a great older brother to me for years. that always just stuck with me. I couldn’t imagine all of us just not sharing all of our food. But a lot of guys weren't into that.... their cereal was their cereal... like that... it was crazy for me getting used to that concept. Because I was so generous. Threw me into a funk for a few days. trying to figure out how I should start being.... should I stop being so generous with people or what? Getting used to playing in the sandbox with other kids...

Something else. just because you are sane doesn’t mean that everyone else out there is sane. I have a tough time with this one sometimes. You forget. And then you're talking with someone and you start realizing that they're just totally fucking crazy... that can get scary sometimes. And in the same respect just because you think that you are sane doesn’t mean that you are. I've been getting a sneaking suspicion for years now that I'm just totally fucking nuts and just don't know it yet...

Don't be afraid to borrow money. the sooner you start borrowing money, the sooner you're on your way to having real money. People wait so long to borrow. Because they just don't know. and then by the time they do know they're in the same position as pretty much everyone else at that age. The key is in borrowing early and borrowing a lot. borrow, pay back, borrow, pay back, borrow, pay back. the key to wealth. I've learned this over the years.

Something else... I remember once when I was about 6 or 7, maybe a bit older. My uncle came to live with my grandparents for a while, his parents. We were living there for the summer as we did every year. one day i looked in this drawer of his. I don't know if he was still staying there anymore or not. But I saw this huge stack of unopened mail in the drawer. I don't know why but it really made a huge impression on me. perhaps it was just intuition but it just didn't feel right to me. unopened mail. 

I've learned that I am prone to what they call adhd. I never noticed it before because I was too caught up in it. I was like a fucking car spinning out of control all the time in my own mind. It has never been easy for me to focus for more than a few seconds on anything. Sit me in front of a computer and within five minutes I will have ten different things opened and started. Two hours later I will have not one of them complete. I've just always been that way. but I've learned this about myself now. Now I think its funny and quaint. I can observe it. I used to take things to slow my mind down. For years I lived like that. Mainly barbiturates of any kind. Anything to just get one thought instead of fifty going at once. I had no idea why, had never given it much thought; I just knew that without them I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. Things just move so fast inside of my head, as if ten or twenty people were all in their at once, talking and planning and jabbering, composing songs, writing speeches, recounting dreams, acting out characters, recalling the past, and designing the future. Sometimes I sit and watch it all and wonder ‘where the hell am I in all of this?’ It is truly a circus. But the side effects are too numerous to live for too long on drugs of any kind. Whether prescribed by doctors or by oneself. You kind of have to be your own boss. Scold yourself. Force yourself not to start something new until you finish what you're working on. I noticed a lot of people are this way. G2 is like this. Drives me fucking crazy. He says it is because he is so creative. That's what everyone says. But no matter what the reason is, you still have to find a way to deal with it and overcome it or you end up getting nothing done and being a loser.

I've created a lot of coping mechanisms in order to coerce myself into having better concentration. I never stay in the same place for very long. As long as I move from one location to another every few hours I seem to be able to focus better. I use a football a lot. And basketball. Whenever I'm on the phone I stand up and walk around in order to give myself a break. I'm attached nearly obsessively to my handheld. That way I don't have to worry about remembering anything. I can just throw it in there and let it remind me of stuff. Things like that. I guess I've learned that one, you can be a certain way and not even know it for years. And two, that you can discover things like that about yourself---self discovery or realization. Like waking up one day and realizing “holy shit I'm a cat” or something, I would love to see my own cats have this experience one day. I think it would be terribly exciting to witness. And three, if one must, something can be done about most things. we can find ways of dealing with the cards we've been dealt. I think this is good news.

I've learned that incorporating is a good thing. America has some of the loosest business laws in the world. Its still very much the Wild West here. Going into business is easy. Making money is easy. Anyone can do it. Anyone can do anything they want to for the most part and call it a business. Its just fucking unbelievably beautiful. One of the keys to making money is saving money. And the key to saving money is incorporating. Whenever one takes up a hobby of any kind one should incorporate it. A man should always have four or five companies going at once at the minimum. I've learned this.

I've learned that the only reason we are American or English or French or Iranian or Israeli is for no other reason than that we were born that way. The only reason that we speak English or French or German or Arabic is because we were born that way. The only reason one is Christian or Jewish of Hindu or Muslim is because it is what they were born into. I have come to understand that to an enlightened soul there is no more honor or righteousness in being American than there is in being African or Chinese or Russian or Korean. No more justification or pride in being one white or black, or any one way or another. They are all just labels attached to us before we were even born. Obligations of necessity. The only real country one should feel any sort of patriotism towards is the earth itself and all of its inhabitants. The only real religion that should be followed or adhered to with any sort of seriousness is humanism, or humanitarianism. There is no race of people more noble and superior than humanity itself as a whole. Any thinking person knows this. But most are afraid to say it aloud for fear of being burned at the stake.

In this age when we could be at the dawn of our inevitable and true coming together as a species we must be very weary of anyone who waves any one flag too fervently; or who swears allegiance to any one God or religious book while leaving out the others. These are tendencies that have always cursed us and caused us as a whole lot of nothing but pain and agony since we have existed in this form.

Last screening: bonnie and Clyde. The original with warren Beatty and an amazing Faye dunaway. Wow. Have to research them a little now.