Sunday Sermon [Social Economics]

Hola mi gente,
Another week, another round of interviews. Hope your week goes well.

Economics of Kindness

Tobacco Road, by DuvallGear

Once at a famous business school, a professor gave a remarkable lecture on social economics to his graduate class. Without saying anything, the professor carefully placed a glass jar on his desk. Then, as the students watched, he brought out a bag filled with stones and placed them in the jar until no more would go in.

The professor asked the students, “Is the jar full?”

“Yes,” they replied.

The professor smiled. From beneath the desk, the professor produced a second bag, this one full of gravel. He took the bag and shook the smaller stones into the spaces between the bigger stones.

For the second time the professor asked, “Is the jar full?”

“No,” they answered, now on to his trickery.

Of course, the students were correct for the professor produced a bag of fine sand and managed to coax much of the sand into the spaces between the stones and the gravel in the jar.

Again he asked, “Is the jar full?”

“Knowing you, professor, probably not!” a student seated at the back of the class joked.

Smiling, the professor brought out a small jug of water, which he poured into the jar full of stones, gravel, and sand. When no more water fit into the jar, he put the jug down and looked at his class.

“So what does this teach you?” he asked his students.

“That no matter how busy your schedule,” one of the students answered, “you can always fit something in!” It was, after all, a prestigious business school.

“No!” thundered the professor. “What it shows is that if you want to get the big stones in, you have to put them in first.”

It was a lesson in priorities.

If you want to get to the “precious stones,” you have to make sure you schedule them first, or you will never get around to them.

What are the big stones in your “jar”? What is the most important fit in your life? Will you find space for the precious stone of kindness?

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

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Sunday Sermon [The Full Catastrophe]

Hola mi Gente,

My first day at my new gig is tomorrow. I’m still looking to rent a room or studio, if anyone knows… 

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The Full Catastrophe

Am I not a man? And is not a man stupid? I’m a man. So I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.

 -- from Zorba the Greek

Those of you familiar with the author, Nikos Kazantzakis, are probably familiar with the above quote. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MSBR) Clinic named his book on the subject of using mindfulness meditation as a way to address pain management, Full Catastrophe Living.

It’s an interesting proposition: using all of life -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- as grist for the mill. I hear too many people talking about how they want to remove “negativity” from their lives. I question the notion to ignore/ remove at least 50% of your life. Actually, I’ve tried this and I’m here to tell you that living in a sensory deprivation environment (otherwise known as solitary confinement -- true story), is not all it’s geared to be.

I mean, I’m not saying we should go out of our way to create or engage “negativity,” but why turn away from it? Why not use it? I don’t know jack about gardening, but what I’ve learned from gardeners is that refusing to engage negativity is a lot like refusing to use manure, or compost to cultivate your garden. And what is negativity but some kind of shit anyway? Sadly, negativity is oftentimes some shit or some one you don’t like. And no matter how much you try to turn away from negativity, everywhere you go, there you are -- with all your own negative baggage. If you perceive it as merely negative, whatever it happens to be, then no amount of turning away will erase negativity because you are creating the perception of negativity in the first place.

Check this out: every situation, accurately perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal. That means negative situations too. No, it doesn’t mean life will be all pleasant and the sun will be shining all the fuckin time. What? Didn’t you get the memo?! If you want fair, go back to kindergarten. Sorry to break it down in such a cold manner. LOL Honestly, I see a lot of unrealistic expectations from the adults of the world. It seems many of us actually believe spending our lives running from unpleasant feelings and clinging pleasant ones is a viable life strategy.

It isn’t... 

People will disappoint you, the fates will conspire to fuck up your plans, your kids will sometimes never appreciate your sacrifices, and not all women will find me sexually attractive. Shit, Rosario Dawson doesn’t even know I exist.

I’m not saying I should deny my feelings. I am actually saying we all should do the opposite: feel your feelings completely. Feel the full catastrophe of your life. What happens to anger, sadness, fear, hate, and envy, lust when you stop trying to categorize / analyze them and just feel them? What happens when you invite the negative as well as the positive and embrace both as a mother would embrace both a “good” and “bad” child? I’ll tell you what happens: you become free as you are healed and made whole.

All healing is essentially letting go of fear. Playing the run-around game based on your likes and dislikes is in reality fear-based living. Try it one day: stay with the hurt without giving in the compulsion to attach a story to it. What we often do is we substitute neurosis for suffering and that just makes it all a lot more painful. Add stress to pain and you have suffering. Let me break that down:

pain + stress = suffering.

I think that’s also a good formula for neurosis.

Coming to wholeness is actually a release from the past. Now here’s where it gets a little tricky. People will rightfully point out that there is a process that leads to letting go, that leads to grief. The thing is this: how many times must you do the process before you start getting it without having to go through all the stages?

Suffering, my friends, is optional.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

In Memoriam: Quentin

Hola mi Gente,

So, as I began to compose today’s post, I was informed my cousin, Quentin, passed away after a battle with cancer. I was raised in a large extended family where cousins were close, like brothers and sisters. I believe the chief component of Quentin’s legacy was that he was genuine his artless love unconditional.
He was too young and I will miss him…

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My cousin, Quentin on the left and I having a good time many years ago

Death

Rainer Maria Rilke

Before us great Death stands
Our fate held close within his quiet hands.
When with proud joy we lift Life’s red wine
To drink deep of the mystic shining cup
And ecstasy through all our being leaps—
Death bows his head and weeps.

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            Rest in peace, my brother…

The King of Soul and the Palace

Hola mi Gente,
I’m off for another interview today. If you have a free couch… LOL

It’s been several years since James Brown passed away. I wrote this back then...

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The Pitkin Theater

James Brown and the Pitkin Theater

At a crucial point in the award-winning film, Mr. Holland’s Opus, the teacher of the title is fighting to save the high school arts program from budget cuts. The exchange goes something like this:

Vice Principal Wolters: I care about these kids just as much as you do. And if I'm forced to choose between Mozart and reading and writing and long division, I choose long division. 

Glenn Holland: Well, I guess you can cut the arts as much as you want, Gene. Sooner or later, these kids aren’t going to have anything to read or write about.

It is a telling moment in a movie that’s principally about the essence of education. The fact of the matter is that art is indispensable to education. Numerous studies have shown that children who are immersed in arts programs tend to do better in reading, writing, and mathematics, for example. The word educate comes from the Latin root word educare, which means to draw from. The implication being that education is not about filling children’s minds, but drawing out the potential that already exists. It is unfortunate that today we eat our young and then blame them for our own collective narcissism and shortsightedness.

I won’t get into that today, but I mention the arts because it has been such an integral part of my life. Art, or Beauty, or Truth, or whatever you want to call it, literally saved my ass. When I was at the lowest point in my life what saved me was art. What saved me was the knowledge that in this fucked up world, full of petty motherfuckers racing mindlessly to catch/ buy/ sell/ the latest trend/ soundbite/ flavor of the month, there is Beauty.

Even in despair, I could still find sustenance in the intricate beauty of a Faulkner paragraph. I could quench my spiritual thirst with Neruda’s passion; I could listen to John Coltrane’s fearlessness and peer wide-eyed along with him into the void. Knowing and experiencing the beauty of a Monet assured me that there was sanity in this world and that it was worth living. And there were many times I needed reminding of the preciousness of life. Therefore, it is with great sadness that I mark the passing of great artists -- those who sustained me, when I felt I couldn’t do it myself. I feel a profound sense of gratitude for the archetype of The Artist, because they serve to remind us that there’s more to this momentary passage of time on this ball of mud we call Earth. The Artist, sometimes at great personal cost, follows her vision and sometimes points us to what matters most, though we oftentimes don’t pay heed.

And so it was with James Brown. I remember growing up listening and dancing to the sounds of James Brown. As a young teen, I danced the Camel Walk to James Brown. And who can forget his anthem to black pride when he sang, “Say it loud! I’m black and I’m proud!” At the time, it was a radical notion for people of color to be proud of their skin color, the texture of their hair, and their culture. We take it for granted now, but there was a hard war fought in order for us to assume that we should be proud.

I was born of Puerto Rican parents and raised in the slums of New York City, rubbing elbows with African-American neighbors who also lived in those ghettos. I remember it was 1967 when we moved to East New York Ave in Brooklyn, right behind the Pitkin Theater. The Pitkin was multi-tiered theatre with Greek statuary adorning the side walls and proscenium area. It had a Robert Morton 3 Manual, 14 Rank theatre organ as well. In those days, movie houses were built to resemble opulent palaces: velvet seats, gilded trimmings, lush carpeting in huge auditoriums facing a great stage where a huge silver screen hung. There was even a balcony and the older kids would go up there to make out.

At the time, we were one of the only Puerto Rican families living on that block embedded in a predominantly African-American community. In the beginning, I had to fight my way to and from school almost every day. Eventually, I would befriend most of my neighbors and the first girl I ever kissed was this beautiful black girl called Gail. Actually, she would kiss me when we stood on line in school and I hated it because I didn’t like girls -- yet.

On Saturdays, my mother would give each of us something like seventy-five cents and send us to the Pitkin Theater across the street on Pitkin Avenue (our apartment faced the back of the Pitkin Theater). The cost of admission was twenty-five cents and for that sum, you would see two new releases, plus the cartoons sandwiched in-between.

But the Pitkin Theater also held live shows and this is where I first experienced live soul music. I remember seeing Little Anthony and the Imperials there, and there were other acts. Many of the then up-and-coming Motown acts used to pass through in those days, part of the circuit and these were hugely popular. I remember the first time I was sitting down at the Pitkin and they were showing, between films, the hottest acts of the day. It was the first time I remember where all the white acts were booed and the Black performers cheered loudly. LMAO!

Now, James Brown, he was no up-and comer. JB was the King -- the Godfather of Soul. I don’t know if he ever played the Pitkin, but whenever I think of JB, I’m reminded of the Pitkin and those long-ago days. JB took the field holler and put it to a fatback backbeat. When JB squealed, screamed, hollered, it was almost as if the collective pain and anguish of the oppressed was concentrated in those musical moments. JB had the nastiest, funkiest rhythm section and if you listened closely, all the West African rhythms were encapsulated in his vocal stylings. To listen to James Brown was to be reminded that you were alive, that you were sensual, sexy, and a bad-assed muthafucka on the dance floor.

Without James Brown, popular music as it exists today would not exist. JB is the most sampled artist, the most emulated, having influenced people from the great Miles Davis to Prince, almost every Hip Hop luminary, and everybody in-between. Our world is a better world because of James Brown, whatever his inner demons were, and today, we’re a lot less richer because of his passing.

And the Pitkin? Unfortunately It closed in the late-1960’s. After, it served for a long time as a church, but the congregation eventually moved out. The entry lobby was converted into retail space (later used as storage), and after over the 40 years of neglect and dereliction the building gradually became a wreck.

In the Summer of 2010, work on the building began and today it has been converted into a school and retail use. So, in a real way both the Pitkin and the Godfather of soul live on.

Rest in peace, JB

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization... 

Reinventing Your Life

Hola mi Gente,

Right now I need one of two things: a funder/ sponsor who will subsidize my basic needs so I can have a place of my own somewhere quiet to write a novel and a book of essays -- or a job. Pass the word… LOL

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Creativity

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.

-- Miles Davis

I want to tell you a story. Perhaps you have heard it?

Once, years ago, the great violinist, Itzhak Perlman, was giving a concert at Carnegie Hall, or some huge venue like that, and the house is packed. He hobbles onstage, puts aside his crutches, and takes his seat. The orchestra begins, and then fades for his entrance. He begins to play and when he hits the second or third note, a string breaks. Goes off like a shot. And everyone’s thinking, Well that’s fucked up, this is it.

Instead, very quietly Perlman signals to the conductor to begin again. Perlman then proceeds to play the entire concerto on three strings. According to the individual who told me this story, you could all but see him rethinking and recreating the part in his head as he was playing -- rearranging it, recasting it, remaking it passionately. And he does this faultlessly, impeccably. He gives the performance of his life, in the process taking the audience to musical heights.

Afterwards, he is quoted as saying, “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

What a powerful example. Isn’t that what life is all about? To make a beautiful, sublime work of art of our lives with what we are given? If you’re waiting or pining for the right time and place, the right job, or the right lover in order to sing the song of yourself, then yours is a wasted life. And a wasted life is the only sin in my book.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…