You're Gonna (Manifest) Change

"But you're gonna change,
you're gonna change,
you've just about made up your mind.
You're gonna change,
you're gonna change,
and when you leave it all behind,
what will the past remember,
what will the future bring
when you walk out?"
--Matthew Sweet

Things are changing. I can feel them changing, and I am aware that I am causing them to change, so the time to be very aware of how I am manifesting change is something I need to focus on, and hence, this post.

The lyrics above once prompted a revolution in my world. It was 1996, I was working as a Security Guard, making $8.35 an hour, and my best hope was that one day I could be assistant supervisor on the 4-12 shift: true shit, that was as good as I thought my life could possibly get, someday. I knew I wanted more, though I couldn't articulate it, but the possibility of my life changing seemed like it was wedded to a fate beyond my control.

I had things going for me, it wasn't all grim. I had a relationship (unhealthy), a dog (who I loved), an apartment (I hated), no debt, an active, though unachieving martial arts life in Daoist and Indonesian martial arts, and I was very interested in Ceremonial Magick. I would say that the martial arts and the magick were really the two things working for me, but I didn't know nor think that I could DO anything with my life with them.

In October of 1996, on Halloween, I went to Salem for the first time (for Halloween), and it ended up being an experience that was fun on one angle, tough on another, and the next day I found myself walking the streets, and this Matthew Sweet song from 1995 came into my head, and while singing it I say a statue in a store of the Egyptian God of Wisdom and Magick, Thoth, which I impulse bought (but couldn't really afford), and after bringing him home for the magickal altar, the next night I had a dream, and that dream created the tapestry for the life I would live for the next 5 years. With ought going into details, that one dream predicted I would study Philosophy at College, I would go to Yale, I would leave my unhappy relationship and start dating a close friend of mine, suffer from a horrific battle with my mental health, I would lose my dog, quit my job in security, and a bunch of other things that did indeed become reality. I applied to College in Winter of 1997, started in the Fall, quite my security job in 1998, suffered a mental collapse in the same month, left my relationship in 2000, started dating my friend the same year, got into Yale in 2003, it all came true, and as it did, the words to Matthew Sweet's song, several of his more "I'm gonna leave this shit behind me" type of songs were guiding lights to my journey, even as, as the dream had spoken to me, I would be getting more and more Goth.

Now, whether or not the dream gave me insight into where I was going and had no part in is something I no longer believe in, though at the time I certainly believed in Fate. I think that the dream I had gave me a glimpse at a life that I had thought impossible until I dreamt it, and then I followed the vision, believed in it, and what I believed in came true. It would be a short time later, as an academic, that it began to dawn on me in my Mystical (Kabbalah) studies that there could be a relationship between thoughts and reality. It is true that I had heard certain phrases, studied alchemy, and the truth was there, but it was just words, it was not truth yet.

I am a great victim of self-sabotage. I have brought myself to the level of wonders and greatness and then decided that I wasn't worthy nor good enough and suddenly chased the dreams and good times away. Sometimes, the things I have thought into reality were poorly thought out and then figuring out how to deal with my new monsters became a whole other issue. I created PhD offers and then ran, opportunities to get published, lived in one of my dream cities, gotten my hands on things I thought I could never afford, become friends with people I never thought I would have access to, and then pushed it all away. I have also created, at times, less for myself than I truly deserved (my shitty apartment, shitty jobs, and poverty in Portland were definitely the way I thought they would be).

There is no doubt I have a great life now! I have a beautiful wife, I have my cats, I live in the part of Boston I had envisioned I would live in, I have multiple high-paying jobs (I am already on track for making $75K this year....as an ADJUNCT!), credit, great things that I own, a PhD waiting to be started in the Fall, I work where I want to work, and while there are things I am still waiting to manifest (a full time teaching job, a schedule that permits ease and access to Yoga, transitioning into a more active writing life where I teach Creative Writing, go to readings, get my work published, a lot more travel, a house in the mountains that is also a short hike into the city) the life that I truly want, that I feel is calling me more and more these days. I keep feeling like change is coming, like I am bursting at the seams to change, that there are great things in my life but they are subtracted by the things I don't want far more these days than I would like them to be. My motto these days keeps coming out of my mouth as "change is coming, my life is about to change for the better," and yet, even feeling like it will change for the better, it is going to change for the better, I must admit, that I am scared for any change or risk, which of course hinders my ability to manifest effective change.

Since I left my first wife, I have been terrified of failure. I shouldn't be, I am a survivor of the highest quality, I know how to manifest success, I am a hard worker, I have a partner who works hard, but still, I fear not being a success, not having a place to live for myself and my cats and my family, and this fear of failure is constantly throwing failure into the success matrix of the life I'm creating. My weight gain, my health issues, my lack of Yoga practice and physical health are clearly signs that my fear of being fat, of not having time to practice and monitor my health has indeed manifesting these things into my life. I am starting to feel, to realize (especially with the birth of my current Chaos Magick practice, admiration of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, the 40 Below Fruity woman), that if I keep holding onto that fear, it will keep holding onto me: if you want change then you have to be willing to let the old life pass away, you've gotta let go of the reigns if you want to change the direction the carriage is going in (time to get new horses, a new carriage, a new way). The importance of being in control of my manifestation, of how I direct my life and where it is going is a very serious issue for me.

For example: I want to work less, as far as teaching goes, but I don't want to lose my ability to support myself (two ideas that are linked in my brain). I need to focus on the reality that I can teach less and still make an abundance of money to support myself. I can work less and make more money, even. I will end up with a full time teaching job, or two part-time teaching jobs, and they will allow me to abundantly support myself, my family, and have the time I need to do the other things I feel like I should be doing and living.

Today I saw a movie, it was REALLY depressing and tragic, but the first 20 minutes of it, the characters had a part of my dream life: house in the mountains that was a short trip into the city, the man had a beautiful tattooed wife (I got that part covered), he was living his creative dreams, he had a daughter, nights sitting in front of the fire playing music, traveling to do his art, and there was so much there that I wanted, I just yelled out, "He has my life!" as if someone had stolen my life. For those first 20 minutes, I wanted that life (he can keep the rest of the movie).

I think that a lot of people, including myself, are scared of change. Two years ago a friend offered me a Yoga job that would have been GREAT, but I got scared and pushed it away. That job would have supported me, my family, gave me the time to write, and kept my Yoga practice alive. I got  full time academic (non-teaching) job last year, thanks to a good friend, and I kept projecting so much shit into it, and everything I projected, came to pass. I created a new life, new work, new opportunities, visualized the success and work and money that have come to pass, but I have also manifested this semester;s work schedule that has me working 6 days a week, working on the seventh, and we are only 3 weeks in and I am already BURNT. I don't know why I accepted that fifth, and then sixth, and then eighth class, but now I am thinking to myself how I wish I could get fired from three of them and damn it, that almost happened last week! The Universe is listening to me loud and clear, so much so that it gave me the jobs and schedule and money I asked for, but also the stress and overload that I envisioned as well. I have already promised myself the following: I will be wise and investing with my money, I will only work 3-4 classes this Summer and give myself an abundance of time to live and do the other things I feel I need to do, my full time job will kick in with the Fall, and this over-stress will end.  And yet, is this the best I can do? Again, I get scared, I get afraid, I begin to push back on what I truly want, I believe things to be worse than they are, I envision debt instead of being responsible with my wealth and creating abundance, and the whole time I feel like I am just holding my breath until the end of April when I get to live again. I even put my Yoga account on freeze until the end of April because I gave up on being able to go at all this semester. While I feel like I am in this for the haul, that I have to live out my manifestation right now until the next one begins, there is this PUSH on me, this thing in my ear that there is a life SO MUCH better waiting for me to seize it, to begin it, and I should just grab it, make it happen, and not be afraid of letting things around me burn (like I did with my first marriage) so that my true life can really take hold.

What would this life look like? I think I know, I thought I know, I know that my cats and wife are three things I want to come with me, I want to keep on teaching I know that much, but what else and how else, I have ideas, feelings, shadows, forms, and I need to be very clear that what I ask for, I am prepared to have. There is definitely a more detailed post and some writing that needs to happen.

For now, change, that old Matthew Sweet song about things changing, this feeling that my life is being approached with powerful and potent changing forces, that nothing is impossible, and that now is the time to take hold of the vision, of the wants and desires, of the dream that should be, and will be, a reality, is coming at me like Vikings at a monastery. I have to be brave enough to be the Vikings, not scared enough to pray I'm not the monks. I am scared, that is true, but what is more true is that I have everything I need to in my life, in my being, to let go of the fear, to embrace my life, and manifest the ME I want to be and live, and no one and nothing else.

Change is coming, for the BETTER, I'm about to walk out of this "space" I've created, and to be precise about the road I walk, and how I can and will walk it. This must be the door of 10,000 wonders, and even more, abundant happy moments.

Adventures in the Death of Academia

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it.--Voltaire 

So, I've been watching a lot of comedy specials the last week, rather uncontrollably, I thought I might have been trying to fill my life with some laughter (to clash against the darkness), but I've been listening to and watching some real "edgy" stuff, stuff people might consider "offensive," and then watching Jim Norton specials, BOOM! it hit me what I was doing: I was looking for a way to speak back at the ineffable of an experience I recently had as a professor where I felt, and I still feel, a bit censored and offended. It dawned on me that, as someone who BELIEVES in Free Speech, who believes in the democratic ideals of Free Speech, especially in the "academy," especially from professors--who should be considered at the vanguard of education and knowledge and Free Speech--I continue to be saddened by experiences, by stories I hear as well, where professors are being rapidly silenced or censored in the classroom (and sometimes, outside of it). Here's my thinking and situation:

So, the other day I'm in a classroom, I have a signed contract to teach, I've been teaching for ten years now, I have an MA and an MFA degree, three years of graduate classes beyond that, I have more credits as a graduate student than most PhD's do (and no PhD....yet: Fall 2015 that changes!), I have had over 2000 students at this point in my career, publications, sat on boards, run an academic center, been an academic consultant, a professional hired gun, so I think it's fair to say I know my stuff. In my entire ten years of teaching I have only had a problem with one student, and that student had threatened to kill an entire classroom of students when I threw him out of the class and reported him. This ratio of students and teachings to problems, changed last week.

On Friday I received an email from my boss at one of my jobs that three students had gone to the Dean and complained that I was discriminating against them because "they were Christian." Of course, the situation was blown WAY out of proportion, I had a meeting with my boss who is VERY cool, and we had a 45-minute talk, I explained how the student (the ring-leader) had freaked out when I was talking about the transition of Old English into Middle English and was mentioning Bede's and Caedmon's  writings about the "genocide" of indigenous Anglo-Saxon and Celtic religion and culture, into a Catholicism, brought that into Epic and Romantic literature (the transition of Pagan literature into Christian), heading into the literature of the Crusades, and what the student objected to were the FACTS I was presenting: historical, concrete, provable, open any textbook on Medieval history FACTS. Now, as someone who teaches Rhetoric and Composition on a regular basis (or if you remember your own classes) I know that you can argue a lot of things, but you can't argue FACTS. You can't say, "No, nothing happened in New York City on 9/11, you're making that up!" because it's a FACT!

Anyway, the student was very upset, disputed facts, argued against facts with a theological debate (now, if we were arguing Theology, the student and I would have agreed on the points made--but this was history the student was debating against, not just debating, but denying and re-inventing), I tried my best to keep control of the class, show the student they didn't know what they were talking about, the student went from buffet-style Theology into some loose logical fallacy-ridden religious ramble, and when they said, "Hitler was a Jew!" I was done, shut down the entire conversation, and then of course, the next day, the email, followed by the meeting. The complaint was that I "discriminated against the student's religion." How so? "By offering facts.

Now, it's not like I am a hardcore Atheist, Secular Humanist, or even a Pantheist, out to disprove the world's religions, with an axe to grind against organized religion. I was raised Roman Catholic, I went to Seminary as a Roman Catholic, when I left Catholicism I went into Lutheranism before finding shelter elsewhere, my dominant spiritual focus and personal practice is the Judeo-Christian Mystical tradition, I have taught Religion classes for ten years, I have been a faculty advisor for Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Pagan student groups, I am a HUGE supporter of the right to personal religious and spiritual expression, I serve as the Spiritual Advisor to several of my Christian friends, and while I think that healthy dialogue and debate is GOOD in academia, that questioning, wonder, research, even righteous indignation are GOOD things in the search for authentic dwelling in the world, that FACTS matter, that RESEARCH matters, that nothing is beyond questioning, that questions are good for developing an Intellectual capacity that have faith, or have a spirituality deeper than the unquestioned and unthinking unobserver.

While this IS my stand on the question (which, I don't think I even have to re-state to defend myself here), the last thing I am or would do is persecute my students or another person for their beliefs. I have students who have believes that I find deeply offensive (no rights for women, death to Jews, death to gay people, there is no Holocaust, that sort of shit), and while I am deeply opposed to those ideas, I would defend that student's right to believe in those things just as much as I would defend the Atheist's view to reject them.

I....BELIEVE....IN....ACADEMIC....INFORMED....FREE ....SPEECH,  and I don't believe in either censorship nor silence.

I am also from the generation, rapidly dying, where a professor's education mattered for something. Their research, their teaching, their education, their ideas (what the Hell ever happened to informed ideas as golden?), their capital as an Intellectual (another dirty word these days), these things matter, they count, they are sacred to an Academic environment, and unless the professor is in the front of the classroom talking about Ancient Aliens writing the Bible, Descended Masters writing the Constitution, Yoga being 15,000 years old, talking about international Religion-based banking conspiracies, or that the earth is less than 6000 years old and science is completely bogus, unless I have gone crazy and show up to class without pants and clown paint on my nipples and begin to say that Ramses the Great had Kennedy killed, unless I am bat shit crazy and am not at the front of the room with facts, with my education, with sources, with my teacher's training, without the credentials of the institutions (#1 ranked) that I went to, NOT doing the job of education (passed down from professor to professor) that I was hired to do, then I shouldn't have to field things or suffer the disrespect from students, questioning from above me, that something I said was "offensive."

And then there is that term: "Offensive." What does that mean? How can an idea be "offensive," how can a "fact" be "offensive?" I can see telling a student a mother joke (about their mother) as being "offensive," I would agree that denigrating someone's appearance as being "offensive," I agree that being sexually suggestive or sexually intimidating to a student as being "offensive," I would 100% agree that insulting a student, defaming their beliefs directly (i.e., "Oh, you worship the Great Pumpkin, that makes you stupid, that's a stupid belief!") would be considered "offensive," but stating facts, how is that "offensive?" How can offering interpretations on historical events be "offensive?" I remember studying at Yale Divinity, John Hare, one of the greatest Philosophy of Religion professors in the world, a devoted Episcopalian, said that "Protestant Christianity is the only religion that makes logical sense," and I remember the Jewish and Muslim and Catholic students disagreeing with him, having an informed discussion with him (we were Religion Grad Students after all), but going and telling Mommy that they were "discriminated" against and "offended," in a classroom where debate is crucial, where if you don't know your stuff you don't get the right to make stuff up and debate as if you do, would have been unheard of. When I studied with Wes Widman at Boston University, in our 800-level Theology class, he called the Left Behind book series (and for that matter, a vigilant belief in the rapture), a "an intellectually dishonest theory haunting Christianity to this day," and some students in the class STRONGLY disagreed with him, no one ran to the Dean, to the Chair, to their parents, tried to get him fired, or complained "he offended me, he discriminated against me," because he (Widman) offered a theological (and logical) response to a crucial part of religious history and theology and identity. It would have been unthinkable as serious, educated students, and I believe that the administration would have thought it absurd to even mention to him if it were.

And what's with this term, "discriminated?" When a student says that a FACT discriminated against their beliefs, the REASONABLE response should be to have them do a research paper on the Civil Rights Movement, send them down to a Crisis Center in the inner city, and have them talk to people who have been DISCRIMINATED  against because of their race and economic class, and see how far their, "My professor talked about the facts of the Crusades and it discriminated against me because I was offended by both the truth and his interpretation of the truth." There is so much in our society where people in this culture, if they don't have a victim-identity, they feel robbed of personhood, and yet, if they were REAL victims of discrimination and injustice and offensive behavior, they wouldn't know what to do with themselves: it would be devastating, the way Nietzsche talks about, "leveling."

And what's worse about the victim-identity existence is that it's always looking to be a victim, always looking for a way to claim a special status, not earned, as if that is the sign of existential authentic standing of personhood in our day. Discrimination is a POWERFUL word, and it's a REAL world, but if discrimination by hearing FACTS or a professor's lecture is just as bad as the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, Segregation, Slavery, then it downplays the real horrific injustices that those people, the dead and the survivors, suffered, really suffered.

So, I had a meeting, and again, my boss is very cool, I think very highly of them, and I know that shit rolls down hill, that no one wants a call from a Dean who should know better (who never came to speak to me despite a start of the semester speech of "I'm the person in your corner"), and have to meet with an adjunct about whether or not they were discriminating against students with Facts and their fancy Ivy League education, and the meeting went well. I told my boss the facts, they were supportive and understanding, the only suggestion to change given to me was to use "trigger warnings" in the classroom to protect sensitive students from the truth, from the material. Keep in mind that I DON'T believe in Trigger Warnings, I find them to be academically dishonest, intellectually insulting, and even to have to use them is a violation of my teaching style and beliefs.

Anyway, I gave a full account of the student, but there was a sentence that was said, a moment of truth, that stuck with me, I haven't been able to drop it (in my mind) since. I was told that, when the Dean heard the complaint from the student, after, "have a talk with this adjunct," was the thought, "now we're gonna have to call HR, break a contract," and that sentence, that idea, that HR would be called, I could have my contract broken for teaching, for speaking about facts, for being not only a Christian, but an academic, who was accused of discriminating against Christians (odd note: my student said the Inner Crusades NEVER happened), of being a thinker accused of thinking the "unthinkable" (which, according to Heidegger, is that, especially in the academy, "we are no longer thinking"), and the unthinkable being FACTS and their interpretation (a same interpretation that could be found in dozens upon dozens of books) in a classroom based on my education and research, and then I have to be a douchebag, call my attorney (and I have a childhood friend who is a GREAT ONE), contact the AAU, the media, and turn around and be forced to sue a major SCIENCE University (the irony on that is not lost for me: a Science University dismissing a professor for allegedly using facts to discriminate against a student's religion, when that professor is not only a person of faith, but is teaching provable, repeatable, unarguable facts: can the student claim "offensive teaching"and "discrimination" in their Chemistry classes because Science is provable and repeatable and questions Creationism), and a student, for breach of contract and defamation, because a student was mad at me that I said 'the Crusades happened and there were Christian clergy and knights who were a part of it.'

There was once a time when indulgences bought sin, paid for a sin, a made up, non-legal, non-scientific, non-Biblical idea in exchange for a real act of hypocritical defiance of one's belief, of the facts of law and freedom and order, and this selling of indulgences, of favors from the unfavorable that brought unfavorable results, were the valued tokens of one's inauthentic faith life, and now, these days, the lack of academic integrity, the silencing of Free Speech, the censoring of experts and scientists and professors and intellectuals is the new indulgence, the new sin tax for the uneducated and overly-zealous masses, who want nothing more, than to defy reason and faith, so that a Jerusalem can burn, yet again. We give pundits and parents and students and administrators and members of the media a free pass to violate our integrity, so that they never have to truly face themselves, alone in the mirror, with the God of their own demonized delusions, terrified of what Academic Integrity really means. This may not have been the start of the Dark Ages, but it was certainly its zenith. If the Dark Ages showed us anything, other then the futility and damage of faith to control and be in charge of academic and scientific and scholarly truths, it showed us that it's a hard struggle to regain our liberties and freedoms, when we have so easily given them up to the Inquisitors of ideology.

"Jacques deMolay, thou art avenged!"

I think of Nietzsche, teaching, writing, saying, "God is dead, and we have killed him, you and I" and how radical that would have been in the 1880's, how challenging at that time, or Marx's claim that "Religion is the Opiate of the Masses," or Darwin's work on Evolution, Einstein's Godless Physics, Russell's Logic, Dewey's Pragmatism, the advances in Science and Philosophy and all the hard research on History, the present work of Dawkins and Hitchens and Harris whose science and secular humanism I find empowering, not defeating to my inner life because I RESPECT their scholarship as experts, their thoughts, their work, and  I think of 120 years of Biblical History scholarship which has given us a view of the repression of the true history of the world's religions, the rise of modern Theology, the continuity of Schopenhauer to Schleiermacher to Kierkegaard to Bardt to Boltman to Bonhoeffer to Tillich and how these great theologians could bare the Truth, could be great academics, and could rise above "cite-texting" and still remain major definers and thinkers that shake the academy to this day, who could remain defenders of the academy, of free thinking, and yet, remain men of faith. It is no accident that to this day, in every respectable Systematic Theology class, it always starts with Kierkegaard. If you aren't starting from doubt and facts, you will never end up with a strong, inner faith.

I am reminded here of Immanuel Kant, a philosopher I am not really that into, but I remember from my Enlightenment Philosophy class, a line I once read that he wrote: "One can only consider themselves a person (man) of faith, when they are willing to look at all the evidence that proves their faith disproven, accept those facts, and still, at the end of the day, believe." Maybe this is one of the many reasons I am hesitant to confess a religious ideology, but quick to defend it in others, claim a deep, defiant, honest, existential spirituality of my own. I want an Enlightenment Faith, a Renaissance Spirituality, a Post Modern Esoteric Identity, one informed by reason and logic and truth and facts, one in concert with intellectual discourse, multi-culturalism, respect for divergent beliefs and backgrounds in informed conversation, a respect for science, for research, for the essential ideals behind the creation and establishment and continuing of the academia, not one threatened by a thought. If your faith, if your religion, if your academic strangle on your position, if your entire University can be shaken by a thought, your first response should be shame, not anger, not "silence him/her."

What am I trying to say here: I feel wounded to have been questioned. I feel wounded that I had to defend the use of the Truth and Facts in my class. I feel wounded that in this day and age Republican politicians can get on TV and make fun of people with great, professional educations, as if they were choosing between Coke being better than Pepsi, I am wounded that my story is similar to so many other professors and adjuncts these days, I am wounded that otherwise smart students are "offended" and feel "discriminated" by an educated and well-prepared professor at the front of the classroom offering FACTS they don't know, I am wounded that I now teach for four months delicately balancing an egg on a spoon for a student who has no place in a classroom at a science University where facts take knee to religious fancy, interpretations they are unfamiliar with, views they have never encountered, and then that professor has to atone for being a professor, for not being some delicate sleepwalker trying to navigate a room of glass. I feel wounded that the idea of a professor who offers an academic interpretation, who offers facts, who taught 97 students that day, and encountered one who was not ready/comfortable for what they heard in the classroom, needs to respond, third hand, on whether-or-not I'm not only hurting a student's feelings by teaching facts, but that I may just be, corrupting the youth. I'm not even a fan of hemlock, but I guess, like injustice, I could get used to the taste.

Truth is, folks, professors are scared. Pseudo-news, the Crisis Cult of Victim-Identity, Over-Litigiousness, Helicopter Parents, an under-educated Administrator class, an unthinking HR bureaucracy that makes determinations on expertise without having one, the fear of adjunct faculty unity, and a disrespect of scholarship in preference for belief, has professors on the RUN. When did the educated become the bottom feeders of "educated" society? I don't know why anyone would want to be a professor (or worse, a High School teacher) anymore, outside of the love of teaching and the love of learning and wisdom (which is why I do it, still). Professors are silent, scared, we say things like, "I would never say out loud, but...." or  "I'm just happy to have a job, but...." and at no other time in our Post-Enlightenment History have academics, professors, thinkers, been in more of a retreat until now. The fact that philosophy is an "unthinkable" major these days, is an absurd major, is sign-of-the-times that thinking and academic freedom is not only sick, it has taken to its sick bed and has lost all hope of recovery. I even have little hope that this post will do anything other than being a swing in the dark at a stalker who is too fast, too deadly to compete, fairly with: academic silence. For Dante, it wasn't the sin that landed one in Hell, it was loss of hope. The greater the loss of hope for truth, the greater the depths to which one found themselves not only rooted in sin, but paying for their sins: Loss of Hope Encourages Sin, Invokes Hell, Prolongs Suffering.....but that's a subject for a more devoted post.

Hell (no pun intended), if there were ever a reason to become an Atheist, if I can point to a time were inner meaning was less important than freedom, liberty, intellectual integrity, outside of my childhood, it would be now. I'm a bit done arguing this, being silent about this, and not taking to the front on this, over the last year or so, and seeing situations like mine, becoming more and more prevalent. It is stuff like this that made me leave Seminary, leave my life into the clergy, my move to a Philosophical Theology PhD (a subject I LOVED for its intellectual devotion), it is stuff like this that made me fear the faithful back then, made me realize that within the non-academic world of faith, lack of education was a blessing, education a curse, all subjects I have read widely, studied hard, spoken often about, and worked hard to reclaim from the darkness of silence, censorship, and ignorance of the material. Show me the zealously-uneducated faithful, show me the pseudo-liberals, and I will show you the death of Faith in humanity, of Hope, and of course, loss of Hope....

Here's my summary: the death of the respect of academic credentials, of research, of intellectual devotion, of academic theory, of science and facts, the return of beliefs being more important than academic integrity, is not a sign that we are becoming more inclusive, not in the least: to have unthinkable thoughts, unthinkable learning, unrepeatable facts, untreatable experts, when tattle tails and the easily offended and discriminated against threaten the integrity of the academic world, then the writings on the wall, the Enlightenment has come to an end, welcome to the new Dark Ages.

Wake me when indulgences go out of fashion again.

Once More.....

Okay, so that I don't have to start another, new Diet and health Blog, I'm just going to use this blog to also track that information, my apologies if it's a bit of a downer compared to my usual existentialist ramblings.


So, around my Birthday (January 13th) I decided that I was missing the big New Year KICK, I had watched the documentary, Hungry For Change, so I was extra inspired to get started with things on the diet front. I scaled down what I would eat for my birthday, and even lost 2 pounds my Birthday week (unheard of), but then last week, this weekend, right off track again. URGH!


Laura (my wife) went away for the weekend, I planned some MASSIVE eating, didn't eat as much as I had planned, but still ate lots of garbage Vegan food, way too many calories (over 4000 a day on Saturday-Monday to my best estimates), and last night, laying down in bed, I had my first "trouble breathing" episode in a long long time. Then, this morning, my work shirt and work pants didn't fit me (and I bought these last year as "fat clothes" that I could wear layers under for the Winter). Worst of all, after a week of seeing some shrinking, my belly looks like someone stuffed a cow in there once again.


In the middle of the night I decided to make the change today, and so, today is the first day (yet again) of many changes.


I have wanted to go Raw Vegan for sometime now, or even Raw Til 4 (you eat raw foods and low fat until dinner, then you eat gluten free cooked and raw foods), and oddly enough, since my Birthday evaluation post, I have successfully re-rallied my troops and decided that I do want to stay Vegan, and have stayed the course on the subject as well. Anyway, today is a Raw Til 4 day, and my plan is to do Raw Til 4 for 6 out of 7 days a week (Sunday Tofu Scramble is a must). I am also giving up on coffee except for Sundays. I was worried about the expense of buying my lunches everyday while I teach, but I spend so much money going out for meals anyway, I am sure I can cut my daily expenses to within a reasonable range of some kind. The most difficult part, outside of coffee, will be giving up wheat, which I also intend to do (outside of Laura's Birthday Celebration, or should we go back to France), and being accountable that I am full before I get onto a bus or subway (which makes me deathly motion sick). It is possible I may just do Raw for Breakfast, and then do a more Grains and Greens thing for lunches, if expenses and convenience aren't working out, but really, I don't think I have much of an excuse for this not to work. The important thing is to get my fat consumption (right now I'm averaging 90 grams of fat per day), sodium (about 5000 milligrams), cut calories down (I am average about 4200 a day, when I should really be around 2200), and clean up all the junk food Veganism that I seem to be eating all the time (goodbye jarred pasta sauce and cookies and fake-processed-cheese products), and then when I drop down about 25 foods, make a real commitment to moving around more, hit that Yoga mat and some long walks HARD, keep up the progress.


It occurred to me last night, that if I lost 2 pounds a week, for 10 months, I would be down 80 pounds, and that would be a really comfortable weight to live at, and my Yoga practice could again really propel me to being healthy, strong, and fit again. The first time I did WW I lost my first 100 pounds in 9 months, and then another 45 in the following year. There's no reason I can't average 8-10 pounds down a month.


I'm also using a calorie counting system, either MyFitnessPal or Livestrong (I'm doing both today: MFP has better socialization, but LS has much more accurate counting tools--I did also think about FitDay and Chronometer as well, but the former is too advertisement strewn, the latter doesn't have good customization for someone like myself who cooks a lot), because I need to actually see the numbers in order to feel and be encouraged. Until WW starts counting fruits and veggies again, I just wont go back, it's a massive waste of my time, although I think they do have the best tracking tool in the business.


So, today is the first day, I'm pretty strong so far (though drinking Green Tea feels a bit ridiculous still, instead of coffee), even dealing with some work stress. I guess I will know where I stand after I go looking for lunch in the University eatery (on MWF at NU, the food options for Raw food are MUCH better). I think eating dinner as soon as I get home (around 7:30 on Tue and Thur) will be really important to help me from freaking out on chips and dip and snacks when I get through the door (actually, I have all the ingredients for a beet-carrot-apple juice when I get home and THAT is what I am really craving today).


Okay, folks, once more, into the breach.


I'll try and post something more mystical, magickal, existential in the next post.

Against the Grind

I think my big revelation after the first week of teaching, other than how stunned I continue to be that people don't know the history of their own religion, is that I am working too much and that needs to change.


Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for all the work I have, all the job opportunities, the great students I get to work with, and by the time April 22nd rolls around I will have made $30K this year already (on pace for a $70K year as an adjunct), this is exactly what I wanted to manifest, but you know, in Portland, I made about $300 a week, I was usually cash poor, starving, too poor to do Yoga, and a hot date with Laura meant $20 between a movie and a meal, and I think I was a lot happier, I felt a lot more free and like life was mine.


These days, I teach, I answer emails, I lesson plan, I grade, I revise, and I have exactly 6 hours to sleep, 1 hour to eat, 1 hour to clean up, each day. Sixteen hours of each day, five days a week (8 hours on another day) belong to work. I get one day off, and even then, I'm grading, emailing, dealing with work stress, compensating for chores undone. Odd thing is, the more money I make, the more I seem to go into debt. In Maine, I had one Credit Card worth $300, now I have $3000 in credit cards, all maxed, I owe the IRS money from my job teaching military (I ended up being treated like a general contractor, to my surprise, at the end of the tax year), my apartment is filled with books I have no time to read, I have a mandolin that I LOVE that I have no time to dedicate to, I have a Yoga membership I have no time (and no energy) to use, a wife and cats I don't see enough, and I know that I'm grinding purely for the sake of grinding: I've become a grinder, in the sense of the gambler, just squeezing out a living between debt and survival, grinding low, grinding high, and not doing the things I should be doing with my life. I think my health and weight, both in a lot of trouble these days, are a sign that I have reached some sort of crisis point. As the lead character says in the movie, Rounders, "But if you're not careful, your whole life can end up one big fucking grind."


I have a few video feeds that I do watch on YouTube, that I catch up on when I can, and one of the messages I keep hearing from them is how they had lives that bogged them down, then they made the leap, they just walked away from the grind, they went poor, they followed their heart, and 3-4 years later they now have successful YouTube careers, successful careers doing what they want to do with their lives. Maybe they aren't making as much money as I do, but they look and sound so much happier and healthier than I am these days.


Can life really be so simple that you believe in your dream, you trust in the dream, and it will carry you through to where you need to be? I mean, of course it can: that's how I got from an unhappy marriage to an unfeeling and abusive person, to freeing myself, rebuilding my career, getting married again, but you know, that whole journey scared the daylights out of me, and when I was poor, I was constantly scared how I would pay my bills, what I would do in case of an emergency. There is also a lot of fear in being an adjunct: you take up all the jobs you can because you never know if the next semester there will be a lack of jobs.


I was recently reading that crucial to Wittgenstein's Theology, something that I have been WRESTLING with as of late, but crucial to it, is the idea, the belief that one lives in a world, absolutely protected from harm and failure from an all-loving God. I don't think, since my days at BU, I have felt that there was an all-Loving God watching out for me. When I left Seminary, when I left Theology, a strong faith survived, it got more esoteric, more mystical, and in many ways it was more like James' idea of "super-sensual," but it was also a strong mystical faith at the ravages of a world where God had simply just walked away. In my martial arts days, one of my Daoist martial arts instructors told me, "If you give your life to the Dao, it will watch over you, and you will never have to want or worry again." There was a similar idea in Yoga, when I did Ashtanga, that if you gave your life to Siva, to being a Yogi, it would carry you through on your journey: it got me all the way to India before I realized I wanted love more than I wanted Yoga. When I gave up on Yoga, it gave up on me, same thing with the Dao, same thing with my yearning to be a priest, same thing with my mysticism that ran a dry well the last two years as my philosophy grew more intense.


But this all makes me wonder, makes me think, what if I gave it all to the sense of "me" that I want to be? What would that look like? Who would I be? I LOVE teaching, so teaching isn't the problem, but how much I'm teaching is, and the fact that I am giving my life to students who are taking classes and learning from me so that they can move on, they can live their dreams, when I myself am not moving on, heading onto and into new things, is a real problem.


Today I had this bit of a dream day. I have a long weekend (my last until March), but I got 8 hours of sleep (I rarely get more than 4-5), I had a healthy Vegan breakfast, I played my mandolin for an hour, I practiced my French for an hour, I wrote for an hour, I spent quality time with the cats (still am), got to snuggle with the wife, did some chores, did some Tai Ji, and I'm sure if I had planned my meals and time better, I could have gotten in some Yoga as well. Even now, I am getting in more writing! Minus some wasted fatty calories I consumed when Laura first went to go visit her mom for the night, this has been a pretty perfect day. Everyday could be like this, it could even be better, so why don't I make it so? The money? The fear? They are so intimately related I don't know how to separate them.


I was thinking about how much I needed to make, at minimum, to live, and still have a life.
Once I paid off my credit cards, paid off my tax debt, I could live on $1800 a month, which is $21,600 take home a year, about $30,000 a gross a year. This would mean no using credit cards, no vacations that aren't nearly free, but it would mean making only $13,000 a semester (plus $5000 in the Summer), not $30,000, which would mean teaching 3-4 classes in Fall and Spring, 2-3 in the Summer, even teaching a minimum of 8 classes a year would make me $32,000, well within my minimum range. If there is any incentive to scale down my life, teach less, have more free time, it would be to have the time again to get into a regular diet and yoga focus again, the time to knock out that first novel (or two) and establish the life I was want to live.


Big confession here from my teaching the last three years: I'm done trying to impress anyone anymore, done not feeling like I get the recognition I deserve from my teaching. I produce great students, I have a brilliant mind, I have great degrees from #1 ranked Universities, and maybe this over-doing of the teaching is also about dragging the canoe across the desert of my feelings of worth, than they are about the vigor of teaching and spreading my Republic far and wide. Sometimes I wish I had a trade, like tile work, or stone work, something I could pick up and travel with and live far more simply. I could do that with Yoga and Martial Arts, I could do that if I got some books out, teach at low residency schools. Maybe I need to lower my sense of esteem and be willing to live on government assistance if need be until I get to that dream state?


Recently, VERY recently, I had a situation in the classroom (no school, no day, no class, no names mentioned) with a really ignorant student and it has since triggered some dialogue about what happened, and as this all has developed, I have been sticking to what is right, and my bosses have been very supportive, but I have also had a bit of, "oh please, take that class away from me, I deserve so much better in life than killing myself over a student who refuses to learn." It has been a short time of stress, a little fear, contacting a lawyer (I could easily sue this student), but also it reminds me of the day when, I was 27, fingers all broken, arms hyper-extended, my head swollen, I was living the martial arts life, and I just looked into a mirror one morning and heard, "this isn't who you're supposed to be, change course, and follow your heart," and I just gave up martial arts, sent in my college applications, and took up the study of philosophy and religious history, which led to nine years of academic bliss in subjects I loved. This week felt like I was close to that moment again. I have a meeting on Tuesday, I will go into it with a sense that "God is watching over me, nothing can harm me," and if being dismissed or fired, or even quitting is an option, than I will take up that path and see where it leads me. If I stay, then I stay and learn, really learn from this semester, do smart things with my money, and come the Summer, take enough work to survive, but not too much that I work all Summer long. If I teach more than three classes this Summer, than I clearly haven't really learned anything yet.


I've also been thinking it's time to look for a full time job again, something regular, something 32 hours a week, four days a week, one foot in some teaching (one class maybe), but something I can go to, show up at 9, leave at 4, and check completely out of when I'm not there. Or maybe I just need to really believe that the Universe, the Dao, God, is watching over me, and that there will be four classes each semester, and there will be three in the Summer, one online during the year, and those will suffice until I really push through to where I need to be with my life.

Now, to name out loud what I want, when I want, and make it happen.

As we used to say in Indonesian Martial Arts: "Om Awignam Astu!" May there be no hindrances.

Mid-Life Evaluation

I saw this article on Rebel Society the other day and decided that to celebrate my 45th Birthday (January 13th) I would take a serious shot at answering these questions, see if they helped with some evaluation, some direction for the next 1/2 of my life.

The link to the original article is HERE, and you can read the detailed information for the questions as well.


Enjoy the ride! (I was brutally honest with this)

1. How much have you loved?

* Too much in the past, not hardly in the present. I think I wear wounds of mistrust on my sleeve, and I'm at the stage of my life where I no longer let people in too close. I have had stages in my life with lots of friends, lots of lovers, but when I've gotten close to someone I've usually gotten burnt. I think that when I like or love someone I totally throw myself into that person, and in the last few years I've definitely changed my approach on that, especially because I tend to throw myself into people and not calculate (or care) as to what I lose in the throwing. I am VERY cautious with how much I love, who I love, and only have a little space these days for people to love, people I let get close to me, and people I reserve the pain of loving from a distance for.

* My friend CD, a few years ago, once compared me to Rilke, something that Salome said about Rilke, that he loved so much and so deeply, but had been burnt because of the intensity of his love, that he was never really able to truly Love someone ever again, or that he Loved them so much that they could never meet his needs or degrees and capacity to Love and be Loved. That comparison has haunted me for the last 6 years because I think it's so dead on, and it's such a curse.

2. What do you love doing that you aren’t doing?
a. I definitely LOVE to travel. I think that I'm an unpleasant fuck when I'm not traveling around, moving about, going on adventures alone or with others.  I have known that since I was very young, and my life feels a bit off that I don't travel much, that I am not engaged in travel and wandering from place to place on a regular basis.
b. I love Yoga, and I'm certainly not doing that these days as well. I just don't have the time for it, it seems.
c. I love wandering around alone, I like being able to take off, for days even, and not tell anyone where I'm going, and just sink deeply into myself, my wits, my survival, my ability to find adventures.
d. I love playing music, and I've always missed not being in a band, not being on stage anymore. I just don't have time to practice more often, the money to play the instruments I want, or even the resources and time to form a band.
e. I would LOVE (more than anything else) to be a full time professor. I miss the life of being 100% in the mind, writing papers, going to conferences, and traveling for research.
f. I also love going to writer's retreats, and when I have the time to be a writer, I do love writing.

3. What person or type of person would you choose as a life companion?
* This is one area that I think I have covered. back in 2009 I wrote out a list of the person I wanted to be with, and then she appeared 9 months later. I of course, made a few mistakes of wanting things that were based on NOT being in common with the person I was with at the time (for example, I MISS being held all night, and miss public affection, things I didn't think I wanted back then, miss having a bit more optimism), but I really think that from a fetish sense, from a partner to live with sense, someone who gets me sense, I think I got this going for me right now.

4.  Where do you want to live? 
* Two places come to mind:
* First, I would love to live in Asheville again. I loved that place and didn't have long enough to live there and truly appreciate it. BUT, I think I would like to live in-town, in a mountanous, misty, smoky place, so Burlington (VT), or living in the Blue Ridge, White, Great Smoky mountains would also be great for me. I definitely need town life, progressive town life, but I also need to be surrounded by mountains and have all four seasons.
*Second, I would love to live in France. I really love the feeling of France, the culture, the people. I have never felt like an "American," not the way other Americans seem to, but I absolutely relate to the French life, the way many of them see the world and live in it, so I think I would make a great Frenchman.

5. What do you want to accomplish? And most importantly, why — what’s your motivation? 

Tough question!

*  I want to get my weight to 199 pounds and stay there. I want to feel healthy in my body, I want to feel sexier, I want to feel like I can dwell in society without the stigma and burdens of obesity, without poor health, and I really loved feeling healthy and strong in my body during times when I was thin and healthier and more active.

* I want to have a stronger fluency with more languages, especially French and Farsi, perfect my German. I find languages really fascinating, I would love to travel more often, travel in various cultures, and engage people with their language, read books again in their native languages.

* I want to get my Yoga Teacher Certification. I don't remember wanting anything more (other than a PhD in Philosophy) in my life, and I think that my motivation is that I love to teach, I love being healthy and in my body, and I would really enjoy to help people transform their physical and psychological and emotional health for a living. 

* I want to travel throughout Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and India. Travel is so exciting and fascinating for me, really comforting for my sense of wonder and self.

* I want to leave behind at least 3 really GREAT literary works 

6. What do you want to be remembered by? 

* I would like to be remembered for the following things:
a. Being a great and caring professor
b. Being a patron of Music
c. Creating a scholarship that supports philosophy students
d. Being a great thinker, an intellectual of the highest caliber
e. Leaving behind some really powerful writing, a few books, but at least one GREAT book that people turn to and quote from and teach in colleges, and say: "This author understands me!"
f. Being a great lover (serious vanity, I know)
g. Being someone who overcame the early obstacles in life, adapted with and overcame obstacles in the middle of his life, and who set his mark for accomplishing greatness, and achieved it

7. What kind of life would “make you jealous“? 

* I am often jealous of people who had the money and guidance to help them get from point A to point B. I never had driving lessons, proms, people pay for my College, a stable home environment, money to get fully on my feet, ability to live at home beyond age 18, or even a family to be a part of or go back to, so I find myself being very jealous of people who are successful, but never had to really fight on their own in order to get some place.

* Other than that, I get a bit jealous of people who have their PhD in Philosophy, people who have the money to travel, people who are successful authors or musicians or Yoga teachers, and I think because at best, my life has been a "C+" in these areas, and it bothers me that I never got to get it to the "A+" level. I also get jealous because I "feel" often times that people aren't as deserving of these accolades or rewards or victories as I am. I wish I could stay home for two years, study Yoga full time, travel back and forth to retreats, and get my teacher certification, but I have to work 70 hours a week to survive (right now).

8. What adventures do you want to have? 

* (the question asks you to list five)
a. I want to live in India for an entire year, do my Yoga teacher training there, travel throughout the country, experience as much of the culture as possible.
b. I want to hike one of the major USA Hiking trails, one of those "six months with you, the elements, a tent," kind of personal challenges.
c. I want to travel around the country, following one of my fav bands to all of their shows. I've always wanted to follow a band to every show on an entire tour. I think the Punch Brothers would be PERFECT for this opportunity.
d. I want to study traditional Japanese swordsmanship in Japan. Traveling extensively in Japan, picking up the language, the medieval culture, and having that "Kensei" experience.
e. I want to move to Europe, give up my USA citizenship, and live the last 30-40 years of my life in Europe, preferably in Northern France, maybe Norway, maybe Northern Italy or Switzerland.
f. Menage a ......

9. If you had to add something to humanity, what would your contribution be? 

* I would like to restore a greater acceptance of the mystical interpretation of spiritual practice, over religious practice. I think that if I could contribute to the mystical body of religious experience and literature, and pas that on, especially with and in-between Islam and Christianity, I will have made these two religions a lot more peaceful, and added to the conversation of spirituality over religion, which I think would lead to more inter-religious discussion, dialogue, practice, and acceptance.

10. What are your ghosts? Your unspoken demons? The stuff you keep in your closet under a lock? What are you most deeply afraid of? Say it out loud. Get real with yourself. It’s how you conquer them.

*I kept this whole question here because I think it's one of the more difficult and scary ones.


*I definitely bring an entire childhood and early teen years of abuse and violence with me. I no longer dwell on them, but they certainly still dwell on me. Part of the reason I have no (very little) family life is because of this history and because that history isn't atoned for,  dealt well with/by my family, so while I no longer embrace a victim identity, that identity hasn't really given up on me. It's also why I am so untrusting, so cautious, why I battle with eating addiction and sex addiction to keep these ghosts at bay. Just because we are done with the past, doesn't mean the past is done with us.


* I also live with a lot of "quitting" in my life. I quit baseball in the middle of my team's playoff game in my Sophomore year; I quit my guitar playing and several bands right when they started getting good (ska thing with my mandolin); I quit my pursuit of a PhD in Philosophy right as it was about to happen; I quit my magickal practice (several times) right when it gets strong; I quit Yoga, I have walked away from friends....my demons are mostly my regrets for quitting things I should have stuck with, mastered, and made excellences in my life. I am definitely haunted by quitting my first marriage, even though it was the right thing to do. I am haunted to the point of ruin that I let my mother give away my Chow Chow dog when I was 19 so that I could live with her, in Florida of all places, and that when I was 31, I left an unhappy marriage under the condition that the dog (a beautiful Siberian Husky) stayed with her.  When I was 17, my evil stepfather got custody of my dog, a beautiful and loving Afghan, who was not being taken good care of in our dysfunctional home, and my stepfather put the dog to sleep as soon as he got it. I cry after those three dogs, on a regular basis, more than I cry for anyone I've ever lost in my life. I understand now how people stay in bad relationships, if just to make sure that they get to stay with their kids.

11. What are your favorite memories? 

* As ashamed as I am to admit this, there is one huge pool of memories that all blend into one, and those are the first time I ever had sex with a person. I tend to look back on how pure, how much love, need, acceptance, care, wonder there was in those moments when you first touch someone and you get to explore them they explore you. I think that first sex with a person is really a magickal and beautiful thing, and should be treasured in the memories.

* But also,  the first day I saw my pets, whether it was the Chow Chow, the Siberian Husky, my cats, especially my cats and the husky, the brightest memories of my life are the days they entered into it. My life is filled with great memories of furry friends and companions.

* Also, my Yoga classes at Asheville, the best Yoga classes I ever had, that great school and community.

* Celebrating the weight loss goals I made at Weight Watchers when I lost 143 pounds.

* The day I got into Yale. I cried like a baby!

* Certain concerts, bands I got to see, shows that have stayed with me.

* Going to France, going to Salem (I always get happy when I go to Salem), traveling (when I'm stressed, the first thing I do is think about when and where and for how long I can get away and see new things, travel). Arriving in India and kissing the feet of the Shiva statue.

* My wedding day with Laura was a great day and a very happy experience. Her family was really GREAT to me, and Laura and I were in this together, and the people who were there were the people we wanted to be there, the (vegan) food was ours, the music was ours, the place was our choosing, and we had struggled so hard to get to this point.

* Being onstage with my bands, playing in front of people, especially when one of my bands played in front of 500 people in Ft Lauderdale.

* The day I got my first Rickenbacker guitar.

12. Who do you love the most? What 10 people would you put on a lifeboat in case of a universal tsunami / asteroid / zombie attack or any other realistic end of the world? Make a list. 

* It would be hard for me to fit 10 people on a boat, because I am so distant, I think that boat would be really empty. Initially, I think that Laura and my cats would be on it. If I were allowed to put friends on it: Sweeney, Brandi, Shauna, Catherine, are my closest confidants, the people I go to when I do break down and need to talk to someone, but I don't know what sort of community that would make.

* Man, this quiz is making me realize what a lonely, unlikeable, fucker I am.

13. What worries you the most? Why? 

* Ever since I left my first wife I have been TERRIFIED of not being able to support myself. the reason I work so much is because I am scared I wont be able to pay bills, pay rent, keep my life together. It was so great to have someone who paid the bills and took care of responsibilities with money before, but now I'm in that position, and I am constantly scared and worried about money and safety. I'm terrified of needing the help of strangers, of being homeless, of losing my cats, of being an older adult male with no where to go.

* I am worried, somewhat, about my health, that I could run my body into the ground again. While I have really good genes, I have run my body down pretty hard twice now, and I'm afraid of doing it again. 

* I am somewhat worried that I'm gonna wake up one day and not want to go any further and then I would have to face a long emotional recovery time. These days I feel like I am really on the edge of the pressures from the last few years just breaking free, crumbling into a pile of tears.

* I'm afraid that getting my physical, emotional, and professional life together would mean an end to my marriage, and I think that keeping things the way they are is me clutching onto not losing someone I am really in love with.

14. What type of people inspire you and make you come alive? 

* I am really inspired by two types of people: a. People who become experts in their field because of the dedication to their craft (Chris Thile and Alan Moore are the two best living examples I can think of) and b. People who leave their security and safety behind and go after their dreams. I think of chasing my dreams all the time, but I also worry about giving up my security and safety and then everything falling apart. It was so hard to put my life back together when I did that in 2011, and I really respect the amount of fear and care and work it took to get to where I am now, so I'm not ready or brave enough to risk being the sort of person I want to be, especially if it costs me my marriage. 

*The type of people who inspire me are the ones who leave the grind behind, go after their dreams, and become masters of their craft while doing so.

15. What type of people bring you down and make you hate yourself? 

* People who sell out, especially yuppies, really bring me down, which I think is more of a reflection of myself, what I hate about myself more than anything else.

* I tend to not like really wealthy people, people who don't use their wealth to help other people.

* I am a bit surprised I have so many people in my life who love and listen to Hip Hop or who eat meat, because I have no room in my heart for letting new people like that into my life. I have such little respect for Hip Hop that I would never sleep with someone who seriously liked that sort of music (or maybe I'm projecting from my first marriage a bit too much....gotta have standards, always remember your standards). 

* I tend to not associate with people I don't like, I am quick to cut people out of my life, so I don't have people in my life that I need to break up with, but there are certainly partners and friends of people who I really like that I would have words with if I could still keep the relationship intact.

16. Who are your mentors? What have they taught you? 

* I have this love-hate relationship with my mentors because, while I am VERY grateful and indebted to their teaching, I tend to find that I want more from them then they are able to give me. I think that for the longest time I was looking for a father (mine is a cunt) and for a substitute mother (mine is a basket case), and that I would enter into a new student-mentor relationship, would grow and transform, and then would want more from that person than they could give me. Sometimes, those mentors, sensing this need, took advantage of that need to be loved, which has left me very on-guard about entering into new ones (I was supposed to work with a famous poet/writer last year, but I new right from the start that besides the writing care, I was going to be looking for the mother-lover archetype in her as well, and so I backed away before I could get hurt, which kept me from a really valuable experience with a great writer and mentor). 

This being said, I am indebted to the following people for all I learned from them:

* Jeremiah Conway (who taught me philosophy and ferocity and to "gird my loins")

* Kathleen (who was my therapist for three of the most difficult years of my life, and who taught me good mental health from bad mental health, even if I don't often listen to that advice anymore)

* Christopher Noel (who taught me about the integrity of a writer, and most importantly, to follow your dreams no matter how much the world laughs at you.

* Wesley "Wes" Wildman (who taught me theology and philosophy, and in such a short time, taught me compassion, professionalism, caring, and who forever will be my model of a Theologian. I would give anything to have not left my program with him, and studied by his side for the rest of my life.

* Joe Taft (who taught me Yoga, love of teaching Yoga, and how to care for the needs of your students--most people illustrate or lead Yoga classes, but he taught the class, and taught the persons taking the classes).

* Rick Stickles (who taught me Aikido from age 15-18, and who forever will be my model of chasing the martial arts dream).

* Pete Mischekowski (who taught me about Vampires and Magick and dark places in the soul, while remaining a good person--he separated good and evil, day and night, for me).

* I have left out a few people, who, while they were essential to my mentoring and learning, ended up hurting me in the end.

17. What is your cosmic elevator pitch? Not your job description, not your professional bio, not your resume, not your About page. But if you got in an elevator on a spaceship that tours the galaxy and you could say anything you wanted about yourself, what would you tell your elevator mates? In short, who are you – raw, unedited, wild, ordinary and extraordinary you? What does it come down to? And why?

* This reminds me of something I once read in a Kabbalistic text:

"All of Kabbalah can be summarized as: What's your name? Why did you come here? How did you get lost? When do you want to go home?"

I usually tell people, "I'm a professor, I teach classes in Composition, Rhetoric, Literature, sometimes Philosophy and/or Writing." Or I tell people, "I really like music, into Americana, new Bluegrass, College Rock from the 80's and 90's, quite a bit of Gothic music as well." Or I tell people, "I'm a Vegan, I'm really into Veganism and animals," or I tell people things like "tattoo culture, eating, museums, ceremonial magick." 

In the words of Rumi, "I am in the state of lucid and astounded confusion. I don't know who I am."

There was once a time I could say, "I'm a Yogi, Mystic, and Writer," and that was TRUE because I had focused my entire life into that tiny box, got rid of everything else, and those were my only focuses. But these days, it would be hard for me to point to any one thing, or organized group of things. Parts of my fractured identities come and go, appear and disappear. I've lost that sense of unity, and I think that, as Wes Wildman once said so insightful of me, "You're broken, as a human being you're broken, and because you've suffered so much abuse and betrayal, because no one stood by you, not even yourself, when you needed them most, your entire life will be focused on finding Unity, finding Atonement, and if it isn't, you're going to be wandering in the desert of your barren soul for a long time." 

The words that really resonate with me, that I often return to are: wild, mystical, wanderer, madman (the way Nietzsche was a "Madman"), philosopher, existentialist, magician. When I say these words, they sound TRUE to me, they have real value with me, and I think I can definitely use these terms to represent what I really vibrate with, what I mostly resonate at my core with.



18. What issues can you help with?
* I think that there are few issues in this world that being a Vegan can't solve. Cruelty, Misogyny, Environmental Concerns, Violence, are all wrapped up in that one lifestyle. I am definitely NOT the best Vegan, and I certainly have the Vegan Police guilt to back that up, and I don't even think that I really want to be a Vegan (don't get me wrong, I don't want to eat beef, pork, chicken, turkey, duck, goat, or eggs, nor consume milk, but I REALLY miss seafood, my body craves it unrelentingly, and whenever I do eat it--about once a month--my body and brain feel SO MUCH better....I also have no problem with cheese from Italy and France) anymore but am only staying so for my wife.


* I do support a lot of bands, a lot of animal charities, I adopt a Turkey every year, send money to help struggling bands make CDs, support art projects, send money to cat sanctuaries, get museum memberships, so my money does go into progressive ventures to help people and animals, OH! and I also treat my money like a vote, so I don't buy products from companies that I think are evil.


* I could do definitely be doing more, especially with inner city youth and homeless shelters and animal shelters, the causes I really care about, but I'm limited on time and resources.



19. How can you express yourself creatively?
* I can definitely write (fiction and nonfiction; I'm a total slob at poetry, though it's my fav), I can play guitar really well, mandolin kind of okay, I can write songs like no one's business, and when I apply myself, I can achieve a certain level of artistic painting skills. I can also cook REALLY well.



20. How do you manage your time? What works for you?
* I don't do a great job of managing my time. I crowd lots of busy time into tight spaces and then collapse when those times open up. For example, this last semester I taught 7 classes, was constantly busy, and then when December came along I pretty much achieved NOTHING for the next five weeks, just stayed home and sulked, all gloomy. I could have done so much more with that time. Unfortunately, I make myself SO busy that when there is free time, all I can do is collapse, exhausted and worn out. There is no down time in my schedule: this semester I only have one day off per week! I am always teaching, prepping, grading, emailing, and that means when school is not in session I am trying to desperately catch my breath.
* The tougher part is that for me to be creative I need spans of time; I'm no grinder. I need to be able to put weeks together, or strings of days each week, to count on for being creative, and when that happens I can crank out HUGE amounts of creative work, or do a great job taking care of myself. So, without the ability to navigate my time better, with less stress and work, I feel like time kind of rules over me, not the other way around.



21. If you were to leave the world today, what’s your manifesto?
* I think that if I were to leave the world today, while I would be remembered by my cats, and occasionally some students, I don't think anyone would remember me or miss me all that much. That's not much of a manifesto, not one at all actually, but I think right now that would be an honest assessment of my mark on this place.
* I think of the term "manifesto" like Marx's famous Manifesto; it should be a call to arms and action, and I don't know if I have one anymore. Back in the days when Yoga or Ceremonial Magick or Mysticism ruled my life, I feel like I did have something "like" a Manifesto I was working on, some sort of example of personhood that was worthy of passing on to others as an example. These days, I wouldn't follow myself into a bathroom stall, let alone a battle. Shouldn't a person's life be their manifesto? Shouldn't a person's life be the rallying cry to arms for a better, more active, more passionate way of being? Every first kiss is a manifesto of the excitement of life to come! Every time you go down on someone, you are whispering the song of love in Radha's ears.
* I thought I wanted to be more political, more philosophical, and this last year I really gave myself to pushing those boundaries and ideas, and then it ended up being such a lonely and isolating life, lost so many friends, and I realized that politics, even some aspects of the philosophical life, are nothing more than creating a louder language in which to say "I love you" to the people you really care about.
* If I had a manifesto, if some sort of wisdom could be carved out of my life's example it would be that, at the least, I leapt after I was confined for too long, I resisted after I was held a prisoner, I fought back after I was beaten down. When in doubt, I fucked.



22. What makes you come alive? What ignites you?
* Music. I can lose myself in my music like nothing else. I discover a new band, or fall in love with a CD or a band, and forget it, hours can go by, weeks can go by, and I am totally sparked alive. I remember when I used to play in bands, and our practices would be 6 hours long, and it felt like we were only playing for 15 minutes, or we would be on stage for 2 hours, and it felt like we had just walked on. back in the days, I could take out my 12-string guitar, or my Rickenbacker, and play for so long, that I would forget to eat all day, I would play with such abandon and careless bliss, and when it was over, exhausted, I felt like I had done something meaningful with my life.
* When I have the time to write, I can write non-stop for 8,10,12 hours, without stopping, getting into that magickal zone where you become your characters and your stories. I miss having the time to lose myself in my writing for days and days and days.
* Seduction. I don't do this anymore (obviously!), but I remember how ALIVE seduction felt, going from knowing someone to getting to KNOW someone. Few things made me come alive like that feeling of "is it gonna happen? Oh, yes, it WILL happen"
* Cooking. This is pretty much as close to therapy as I come these days. When I'm having a tough day (or life), or I want to surrender to the iPod player and lose myself, I just get cooking. It is a real wonder sometimes, why I never became a pastry chef.
* Traveling! I love to pack, head for the train/bus/plane and take off. I think that Travel is what really gets the gears greased for me, gets me going, and when I am exploring new things, new places, when I am away, on the move, on adventure, I feel like life is back in love with me again.




23. What are your most painful memories?
* My childhood was.....terrible. It was worse than I think most people realize. Childhoods like mine turn people into prostitutes and heroin addicts, it leads to people putting a bullet in their head, and believe me, those are still ideas that are on the table for me as viable life options (although one of those three, already done). It's hard to explain to someone that when you think of your childhood you think of TERROR, and that when you talk about the happy times in your childhood you are only talking about the cracks in the pavement, not the pavement itself. I really hate people who adopt victim identities as their primary identity, but I'm sure that the lack of acknowledgment from family, from perpetrators, from the people who were flippant with what happened to children, who are excusatory to the perpetrators, are certainly shrapnel still living in my soul.
* Losing my dogs definitely hurts still, and it keeps me in fear to keep my cats and I together.
* Theresa. Out of all the women I've ever loved, I have only LOVED two, and one of them wounded me so deeply that it signaled an end of "Nice Guy" me, it made me stop trying to be good and decent and faithful, and I think that, despite that it was 15 years ago, every relationship, every relationship situation, still is seen, in some way, through the window of how much damage a person can do to you if you give them your ALL.



24. Why do you eat the way you eat and the things you eat?
* I eat (mostly) vegan because that's how my wife eats. I would definitely become an Auyervedic Vegetarian, or even a Pescetarian, if my wife were to leave me. Don't get me wrong, I love the Vegan food that I eat, and I DON'T miss meat and eggs, and non-violence is a very important symbol for my life, but I just feel very "Mediterranean" in my eating, my body has always been healthiest when it has eaten that way, and my "good" memories from childhood are all tied up in seafood and Central Italian.
* I eat too much because I learned to trade food for love at a very young age.
* I recently learned that I eat so much (and weigh so much) as a way to signal to others that this body, this soul, is in distress, it is in the state of unhappiness and basic survival.
* I am very adventurous in my eating, love to try new foods from new cultures(as long as I can eat the food) and I do envision myself, someday, traveling the world, eating street food, and mixing food with friendship, culture, and love.



25. What ignites your brain?
* Music. This is becoming a pretty consistent answer to most of these questions. LOL! But yes, music sets the mood for so many things in my life, and it really defines the pace of my day, the spaces in-between my day, how I am dwelling in my life, in my world; who I am representing myself as to the world around me.
* Good food! I get very excited by trying new foods, or really well made food, and I must admit, especially when they are Vegan friendly.
* Sex. The impact of sex on my life as a motivator (that sometimes runs out of control), as a way of seeing myself and expressing myself, is certainly something that gets the gears going for me.
* Wine. I actually find Wine to be very inspiring for my wilder creative side.
* Coffee. These days I have a love-hate relationship with Coffee (reconsidering if my lymphatic system is burnt out, and if I've drunk so much coffee, am drinking so much coffee that my body is exhausted because of it), but nothing gets the creative juice flowing like really good coffee. I can write 40 pages on nothing but two pots of coffee.
* Day-dreaming of traveling, traveling, or going off into solitude to travel a bit. I am definitely someone who writes a lot, gets inspired a lot by being far from home to create. This is something I need to do more of this year.



26. What physical exercise makes you sweat it like you mean it and enjoy both, the process and the afterward feeling?
* Yoga. It is the best exercise to sweat and suffer and feel like you actually worked out. It has to be a heated room, but there is nothing like a Hot Vinyassa-style Yoga room to get the body feeling God-like again.
* Long-Distance walking. I LOVE to walk and hike, and getting in 7-8 miles is pretty much a norm in setting out to cover some miles for me. For a while, I used to walk 11-12 miles a day! If I lived in a warmer climate where I could walk year-round, I would definitely walk everyday and make it my primary form of exercise.
* Aikido and Japanese Swordsmanship. I think about going back to this all the time, but I don't have the time in my schedule to commute all the way across the city to get to class, train for 2 hours, and travel all the way back. I used to LOVE these types of martial arts, love the discipline and Samurai-like expression of the arts, and plus, it was a great work out.


27. What does your body need in order to function at its best?
* From a food standpoint: my body needs four meals a day, needs non-meat and eggs food, needs lots of leafy greens and tomatoes and fruits, needs to stop eating by 7:00pm, needs very little (or none) processed sugars and white flour foods, no soda or candy, no hard alcohol. A perfect day for my body would be: Baked home fries with Kale and Onions, glass of fresh squeezed OJ for Breakfast, cappuccino for a snack, Quinoa with avocado and veggies for Lunch, Biscotti, Pear, and Coffee for late afternoon snack,  Whole Wheat pasta with mushroom marinara sauce, Italian salad and steamed broccoli on the side, 1/2 oz of dark chocolate and 2 cups of grapes for dessert.
* Exercise. An ideal day would be 75 minutes of Hot Yoga and 3 miles of walking.
* Sleep: if I could get 7 hours a day of uninterupted sleep, which NEVER happens, that would be perfect. Going to bed at 9:00pm, getting up at 5:00am, and actually sleeping during that time, would be wonderful for me. I barely sleep 4 hours a night.
* Body needs: Neti Pot, two HOT showers a day, Rose Water for my eyes, oils for my skin, clean clothes, clean air in my bedroom, sex 3-4 times a week, more laughter, to be held on a regular basis, massage once a week, sauna once a week.
* One day off each week to sleep the entire day and recover from working out and weekly matters, have that be my one TV day, and watch really good, thrilling TV shows.



28. What feeds your spirit? What gives you goosebumps? What makes you fall down to your knees in awe (and weep)?Is it god? Religion? The universe? Science? Starry nights? Philosophy? Nature? Music? Art? It has to be higher than a person (than you), and surpass your understanding. There is no awe without mystery.
* Music. I'm sitting here in my office, listening to a playlist of my fav songs from the 90's, songs I've heard probably 100 times, and still, those first notes of the Dambuilders' or Guadalcanal Diary or Sugar, and it's like I'm hearing them for the first time. I think that music is really my Divinity, as far as feeling something Divine in my life everyday. I especially love new bands, when a fav band makes a great new recording, really great street musicians, going to the Symphony: It absolutely refuels my entire "soul." Live performances also have this magickal recharging power.
* Nature. I like being in the mountains, smelling wood-burning stoves in the distance, a warm quilt on a cold, naked in bed, autumn day watching the snow fall all over the valley, I love forests of birch trees, I love scenic views, I love feeling that I can talk to trees, or that I can relate to trees.
* Museums, seeing ancient art and treasures. I go CRAZY when I see something that I never thought I would see in person (like the first time I saw the Mona Lisa or the Code of Hamarupi or a real Mithraeum: I cried like a baby). I would also put great art into this category.
* Nude women. The female body is proof of something greater, something holy and sacred and good in the world, and I never get tired of looking at the female body, in all of its forms. Even better when they are in person.
* Philosophy. Whether it was my Descartes phase, my life-long love of Nietzsche, my Heidegger or Husserl phases, or my current infatuation with Wittgenstein (who is starting to cause some serious internal conflicts for me), reading philosophy, becoming intimate with a Philosopher has a real power over me: transformative and re-invigorating.
* Magick used to be the fuel for my spiritual needs, and mix esoteric practices with mystical ones, and I was really empowered. The problem is that I don't have the free schedule these days of the absent-minded magician, or the privacy of one, and while I do find myself returning to Kabbalahism or Enochiana or the Mystical Christian traditions from time to time, it seems to "come and go," but when it's here, it is POWERFUL.



29. What are you proud of so far? What have you accomplished?
* I have my BA. I graduated with a 3.78 gpa. I was a double major, minor in Creative Writing. I got into Yale, I graduated with my MA from Yale. I went to BU (though I did not graduate). I went to VCFA and graduated from there. I'm pretty proud of my academic accomplishments, although I would love to have my PhD as well.
* I didn't stay in the same town, or area, or state that I grew up in, and that's a trap that I feel like I really escaped from.
* I'm proud that I traveled all the way to India by myself, though not proud that I didn't stay.
* I'm proud that I have been supporting myself since I was 18, I have been paying my own way, and no one has had to pay my way for me in life, I didn't stay at my parents or family as I was an adult.
* I'm proud that I overcame the small-minded and racist world and family that I came from, and that I educated myself, and that I overcame that sort of mental prison that confines people their whole life.
* I have been a professor for ten years now, and at this stage I have been responsible for educating over 2000 students at this stage.
* I won a writing award, I've had a few things published, but nothing great yet.
* I am my own person, for the most part, and that wild independent streak is something I am very proud of, and that I am VERY sensitive about. I gave parts of that away during the year of my first marriage, and at times I give some of that away in my current marriage, but being my own person is something I hold in high regard.


*Sadly, I don't feel like I've accomplished much in the last few years. I'm due for something BIG.



30. Fast-forward to your epitaph.

* "Here is DM: he was a great teacher, writer, world traveler, intellectual, and patron of philosophy."

31. What is the meaning of life?

* I tend to believe that life is an extension of consciousness, and that all we ever experience is an extension of consciousness that we are aware of, or seek to become aware of.  At our best, our lives about experiencing the love and joy of being with others, and experiencing consciousness in harmony with them. At our worst, we deny the consciousness of others, and feel isolation and defiance from them. In the grand scheme, I think we experience both, lovers and enemies, the good and the bad, all are projections of us, of our ability to be conscious and experience consciousness, and if we work hard, if we struggle and seek for the source of pure consciousness, we get to experience a real bliss of the unity of being One with others, with the source of pure consciousness. We come here in order to return.

* If none of that is true, then we are here to live a meaningful and purpose-filled life, one filled with joy and wisdom and wonder, one where we love deeply, fuck hard, travel far, read deeply, dance wildly, one where we chase after and accomplish our dreams, and leave behind no regrets, only the realization of our great work and living example of life-embodied-by-spirit.