It used to be that I needed a cup of coffee to start my day. Now it’s become a cup of coffee and a smartphone.

Anyway, this isn’t really to gripe. In fact, I am quite content and happy. I have had some great experiences this week. I have had a bunch of great opportunities open up, and I am looking forward to working on them. I’ve also started painting again, and doing some small carving things.

Sadly, I did have some work stolen. That sucked, but it happens. You just have to gauge how important it is to you on whether you fight for it or not. I raised Hell, but in the end I don’t think I really would have gotten through the beauracracy and hypocrisy of a visibly corrupt marketing system. Oh well. Lesson learned. The thing that really got me was that the people I expected to support me literally disappeared.

The moral of the story: surround yourself with people who are going to do what’s right, and get rid of those who are only going to preach what’s right.

Here’s a small piece I did on the computer that I have been waiting to post. It’s titled: Vincent Von Frankenstein: Adolescent

Also, here are some initial concept designs for a puppet show that I was working on:

Oh… also, I did some carving.

Westerners define it differently than Easterners. For Westerners happiness is a feeling of euphoria. It’s a sense that everything is going to be wonderful, and that we are going to live happily ever after and ride on unicorns that fart cotton candy in the shape of kittens dressed in panda costumes (yeah, that was for you BgK!). In a word, it’s pretty unrealistic. One of the reasons is that the Western view of happiness is based on the external. If I buy a house, I’ll be happy. If I get a good job, I’ll be happy. If I get a big screen TV, I’ll be happy. If I shower myself and my family with luxuries that make Olympus envious, then I will be happy. See a trend here.

The Western view of happiness is totally based on external. Things that we do, obtain, or achieve outside of ourselves. They are hollow victories, and the rarely give any sustainable meaning to one’s life. Remember that smart phone you just bought? Next year’s model will be released soon, and it will have more memory, more features, and touch screen that will lick your nether regions if you get the right app. A Westerners view of happiness is based on conquests. It’s kind of like Gilgamesh run amock, only Gilgamesh never realized that his victories were hollow and that his defining commitment was to protect his people.

Easterners, on the other hand, view happiness as a momentary event. We are happy one moment, and sad the next. Happiness is a state of complete joy and serenity. It is the overwhelming urge to smile, laugh, cry, and dance at the same time. To allow one’s heart to explode with delight. However, it is also with the knowledge that true happiness is momentary. It’s impermanent. Really, the best way to explain it is inner peace. It’s knowing how you react to certain situations, and to be able to allow yourself to feel those emotions that you need to feel to get through trying times. Without that inner peace, we tend to look for outside forces to make us well which causes more suffering, which encourages us to seek out more bad forces, and so on, and so on.

However, it doesn’t end. It’s impermanent in the sense that one moment of happiness is not like another. It is also understood that happiness is in balance with suffering. You can not achieve enlightenment without suffering, neither can you achieve happiness without sadness. However, within that balance comes contentment, and the knowledge that happiness is an ever flowing river. It has it’s good parts, and bad parts, and there is occasional loss, but ultimately that is life. Short, beautiful, impermanent, and understanding that balance comes peace.

His Holiness the Dalai Llama has said that happiness is a muscle. It is something that we must work to achieve, through meditation and focus on where we are at the moment. My wife does not like that analogy. It’s a hard analogy to wrap our heads around. Either something makes us happy, or it doesn’t. What HHDL is saying is that we must be active in our happiness. We must cultivate our own inner peace.

For me happiness comes from making things. The things I make are rubbish for the most part. It’s not the end product, it’s the process. It’s letting energy flow through me to make something, to cook something, to build something. To be a part of the impermanence of it all. It’s joyous actually. I see that joy extending to my kids, as I watch them build something. It cames from this inner need to see how something works, and how it connects us. My happiness comes from the connections I cultivate, the people I talk to. The people who give me a little piece of themselves everyday, and in return I give myself.

More importantly, it’s knowing there is balance that I am responsible for in my own life. I am the cause of my own happiness. I can either be a part of this world, or I can shun it. I know a lot of people who shun it. They call themselves cynics. They would much rather say why I am wrong, then look at themselves. I am not saying that everything in the world is great. There are lot of things that suck. There isn’t a library big enough to contain all of the sucky things going on right now. However, I can’t let those sucky things stop me. In fact, it is my duty to help other out of their sucky situation as other have helped me out of mine.

We are, as it turns out, responsible for those around us.

Go be Happy. Go Be Awesome!

My oldest tends to be one of my greatest subjects. He has severe ADHD, so he is rarely slow. He is always on the move. Always exploring.

Yet, when he is still you can see the universe racing in his eyes. It’s like he moves along with the flow of the planets. He is a planetary force in and of himself, and he will always be the first of my greatest creation.

Just doing some drawing in between acts. Once the creative

It got me thinking. This is the reason for social networking, connecting people. Not selling products. Not properly positioning your brand. Not increasing your social revenue. That’s a bunch of marketing bullshit. That’s something agencies use to make themselves seem important.

The real purpose is to connect people, and hopefully they meet, strike up a friendship, and collaborate. Collaboration. An exchange of ideas with mutual respect for each others work. All those marketing words are just agencies attempts to mold the user into their little automaton.

Anyway, it got me thinking. I will help anybody with a project if I believe in it. I may not always be able to and I may not be able to commit to a full set of projects, but I will give as much support as I can. You need a logo? Let me do it. It may take a while, but it’s what I like to do. It’s what keeps me charged. That said, some people feel uncomfortable, and that’s okay too.

It has made me realize what I have been missing. It hasn’t been the performing. To be honest, I can do without some of that. It’s not the performance, it’s the scheduling. Maybe when the kids are older it won’t be so bad. They’ll be more self-sufficient, and I may even be able to include them. It’s great to hangout and work on stuff in a team environment, but the scheduling is just a bitch. It must be just as fun for the director.

What I have really been missing is the ability to break the box. I do that a lot in just the way I see the world. I don’t see it as a clear black and white world with delineated absolutes. It’s more like looking at a big petrie dish of amoebas. Constantly changing. However, in my work I tend to stick with what I am most comfortable with. I use the computer to draw, I use a very set scale pattern for bass playing, and my food is usually stuff that I know by heart.

What I miss is stepping out of my own skin and just seeing where the choices go. It’s one of those things that my kids have been teaching me. Enjoy experimenting, and watching the kaboom if need be.

It’s kinda fun.

That all said, I am truly looking forward to performing again. I am scared, excited, nervous, and ecstatic. I think it’s going to be a great time, and the best part is I have a great bunch of performers I get to work with. I good bunch of minds who are willing to break their own shells.

For this I would like to thank all of the students of the Marian University Theatre, the Performing Knights club, and the entire cast of One Knight Wonders. You helped make an old meneheune feel young again.

That said, we should all go out and appreciate the miracle of just being. That is a pretty awesome thing. My wife asked how do you let all that in without letting it overcome you. My answer was that I create, and I allow myself to be pretty emotional. It helps. As a designer, I always felt that it was important to allow myself to feel everything, no matter how hard or crippling it was. I couldn’t create if I didn’t have anything to charge that creativity. After all, what is creativity if not channeling an emotion no matter how small. It’s like a garden. An inner garden that surrounds us, grounds us, and brings us balance.

Each of us cultivates our garden in our own way. For instance, there is a bloke here in Indy that goes by the name @BgKahuna (check him out, you’ll be glad you did). He decided to put together an event in downtown that is just a bunch of people giving away hugs. There is nothing salacious about it. BgKahuna and others are just giving out hugs to people who could use them. People who could use a little rain to cultivate their own garden. You may even see me down there for a few minutes dolling out a couple of bear grips.

As with anything positive there are always detractors. There have been a number of people who look down on these kinds of events, but what it comes down to is that their own gardens are withered and dried that they can’t see the value in helping someone tend their garden. These people… they are probably the most in need of an unsolicited hug that I have ever seen. These are people that truly are hurting.

So go out and cultivate your garden. Create your own balance, and don’t be afraid to let all of the miracles overhelm you. You may find that you are the better for it.

The Lone Man in The Desert

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that we all suffer from this “not quite finished” syndrome. We let our anxieties for perfection interrupt our need to just create. When we allow ourselves the opportunity to say “I can do no more” we begin to see the flaws in our work and realize how much they hold the mirror up to ourselves. It is not our perfections that make us who we are, but our flaws. It’s because of the flaws that we have character, and a desire to push beyond. This transcends into all parts of our lives.

Just go make something.

And for your listening pleasure, here’s some Los Tiki Phantoms with Siberia. Go write your own story.

Anyway, it got me thinking. When am I going to start doing what I want to do. I’ve taken care of my family, I have seen my loved ones through good times and bad times, I have dusted myself off every time I’ve been pushed to the ground, and I’ve charted my own course in doing so. Recently, I joined a group of fellow bloggers – some serious, some not so serious, yet all are sincere. The goal was for each of us to post once of week. We’re kind of a secret society, so a lot of people know about it – well… a lot of people just blankly stare and nod.

This group, this band of bloggers, is really encouraging me to take more control over those things that I enjoy. It’s like there is a group out there for me, and they are just as much of a misfit as I am – except one guy who owns a manatee (long story; involves kelp I think). Whether it’s picking up my pencils again, drawing on the computer, or digging into audio recording, I am really starting to feel like it’s my time to stretch my legs. And it’s making me a better father. My kids are unknowingly raising me because now instead of trying to keep their attention to put on their clothes (yeah, that never stops) they are trying to keep me doing what I love doing, and that is creating. They see me making stuff and want to jump in.

The next major goal for me is to start selling prints of my work (as seen below). I have a lot of research as far as budget, shipping, printing, and how many should I do a first run. In the mean time, playing with my band the VertigoGo’s, dancing to Culture Club, and finding new ways to make my family laugh. Life is pretty good. I am sure I could find something to complain about, but it wouldn’t do that much good, so I focus on everything that is right.

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition[...]

- Henry V, act IV, scene iii

It’s a great feeling. I have a lot of people to thank, and I haven’t met all of them. I will soon. In fact I think there are some fruity drinks that should be had and soon.