The Mini Me

Hola Mi Gente...

Happy Three Kings Day! I’m reposting the following because I seem to always refer back to it.

Three hundred thousand new businesses were formed in the United States in 2003. Eighty percent of these start-ups fail within the first two years. I doubt very much that the founders of these businesses assumed they would be part of the unfortunate eighty percent. More than half of all US marriages end up in divorce within five years of being formed, with thirty percent of those remaining in marriage reporting being extremely dissatisfied. Again, we can imagine that very few lovers assumed that they would be part of the despondent 80 percent.

Why does our vision, which knows only happy endings and simple solutions, rarely lead to what we had imagined? When we dare give flight to our dreams, why is it so often destined for a crash landing?

Actually, I started this entry back-ass-wards: I should have begun with an entry on what I call “natural vision” a child-like (as opposed to childish) quality that persists in seeing the world with fresh eyes. However, in light of the consistent tragi-comedic patterns of life, I will begin with the dark side.

Natural vision is invariably sabotaged by an unforeseen element in our lives, which affects us internally and externally. It is so powerful that it influences the way we parent, the way we treat our loved ones and each other, the way we do work each day. Furthermore, it influences how others treat us. We never expect or invite it, yet almost every aspect of our lives exists in its shadow. And though we constantly confronted with evidence of its effects, this force is basically invisible and therefore never anticipated and rarely understood. Oh yes, we do our best to put a good face on it in order to keep it hidden from others, thinking our dark secrets are ours alone, but it really doesn't work. You can see the effects of this force everywhere.

What is this mysterious element in human nature that stalks and sabotages us?

STORY TIME!!! ::grin::

* * *

The “Mini Me”

and the Creation of the Personal Novela

Human beings are driven by a core wound, this kind of madness that something’s missing. The more conscious they get, the more desperate that becomes...

-- Saniel Bonder

In Shakespeare's play, Othello, the protagonist and his young Venetian wife are deeply in love. Othello is a noble and simple-hearted soldier who trusts those around him. Desdemona, his devoted wife, loves him deeply and hangs on his every word. It is Iago, Othello's advisor and apparent friend, who plays one character against another, creating an atmosphere of separation and distrust. He whispers doubts into Othello's ear, inciting in him a violent jealousy that ultimately leads to a senseless tragedy.

We are all Othellos at heart -- open, trusting wanting to see the best in each other -- and we are seduced and driven to insane action by our own invisible Iagos. Our Iago is a state of mind: he cannot be seen, he lives in the shadows. Yet his work is evident everywhere. Iago whispers to us both from within and through other people. His is the voice of a collective conditioning.

Our Iagos are like the “Mini Me” from the Austin Powers movies -- a smaller, angrier, and spiteful version of ourselves. A tragically funny alter-ego. Most of us live with a painful sense of separation from others, a sense of something missing, and a deep experience of limitation, fear, and desire -- we experience ourselves as small. As a result, we engage in a flurry of activity to avoid the objects of our fear and obtain the objects of our craving.

This is the dance of problem-based living and, although widely perceived as normal, it fuels an endless drama of struggle. It’s the main character of what I see as our personal novela -- those over-the-top Spanish-language soap operas. And no matter how hard we try, the poison seeps through the cracks in our armor, manifesting as disease, conflict, and failure.

On a personal level, it can manifest as a general anxiety, or a body image problem. On a community level, it can sabotage something as seemingly simple as a blog or Facebook page (if you want proof of the Mini Me, just take note of the widespread pettiness on Facebook). Globally, it is expressed as war, as economic and environmental degradation, and mutally assured destruction. This force has been given many names. I have heard it called “The Gremlin,” or (for the fundamentalists here) “Satan.” I call it ego-based living, or the “Mini Me.”

Unlike the movie, we cannot see or measure the Mini Me directly; we only know it by its effects. It is like a thief in the night. You actually do not see it, but you know it has been there because your valuables have been taken. This Mini Me is state of mind -- a social conditioning of sorts and it possesses certain qualities:

Sense of Lack This is the essence of the Mini Me. Enough is never enough; we are never spiritual enough, skinny enough, smart enough, or hip enough. We perceive everything through this sense of lack.

Sense of Separation Constantly reaching “out there” to fill up our sensed emptiness keeps us focused on a me-oriented alternate reality, reinforcing our separateness.

Addiction Gripped in the throes of craving and lack, as soon as we sense that something external will “do it” for us, we latch on to it and become addicted. In this way, the Mini Me can lead us into unhealthy attachments to work, sex, food, drugs, the internet (Facebook? Twitter? LOL!), or even romantic relationships.

Fear Once desire and addiction take over, we are overcome by a sense of non-specific fear. If we are convinced the right relationship will alleviate our sense of emptiness, immediately loneliness becomes a terrifying fate.

Suspicion fear makes us suspicious, we trust no one completely.

Strategic Living We always plan for the worst -- something bad can happen any moment (politicians are notorious for using this aspect of the Mini Me).

Anxiety There is notion that something is wrong, that we should be doing something more to be “complete.” We sometimes live in the throes of a subtle and generalized anxiety.

Hostile Competition this is especially true in the realm of dating. If there is this notion that there is not enough, we must fight others who are trying to get it too. This is hostile competition as opposed to co-creation or collaboration.

How do we get back our “larger” selves, where ego-driven madness doesn’t rule? How do we (or do we want to?) get back to our original self-connected to something more powerful than mere desire, aversion, and grasping?

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

The King and The Palace

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

* * *

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 teaching our young. 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, 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 like lemmings to catch/ buy/ sell/ the latest trend/ soundbite, flavor of the month, there was Beauty.

In my destitution, I could find sustenance in the intricate beauty of a Faulkner paragraph. I could drink Neruda’s passion; I could listen to John Coltrane’s fearless wide-eyed peer 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. 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 (that’s the Pitkin Theater above). 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 everyday. Eventually, I would befriend most of my neighbors and the first girl I ever kissed was this beautiful light-skinned 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 of Soul, 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 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 was the most sampled artist, the most emulated, having influenced people from the great Miles Davis to Prince 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.

Rest in peace, JB


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