Like a Carousel

So here I am. It is May nineteenth in the year two thousand and five, but those numbers have lost their weight. I have been without them for a while. No longer racing, because as it turns out, I’m the only one in the race, and whatever pace I make, seems to be just about right. That pace has been constant, with little rest, but for a few hours when the world dreams of the love that we’ll make in the morning.

There is nothing but green lights streaming before me, a frenzy of neon truth, luminescent god gracing this broken little vessel with the ornaments of heaven and beyond, in wavelengths that pierce you beyond bone, and sit marinating in your heart for as long as you’ll allow it. It’s really quite wonderful. And it just keeps on coming.

And when this joyride ends, there will be stories for a lifetime of wishes, and faith that has found its place in this perseverance of truth.

It all comes around. You’ll see.

Imposters & Truth

May 8, 2005

Chemical clean and air-conditioned cool. This is often the way of things in such a modern world. I wonder how it got to be this way. Hundreds of years ago when we ran around in scraps of clothing, without running water, the luxury of electricity, or prepackaged home cleaning agents, what was the standard, the archetypical “clean?” What was the smell of “clean” then? Fresh lilacs from the garden, a long breeze from across the horizon, a hot glycerin bath, freshly baked bread in the oven? Naturally occurring niceties were surely the gold standard…..at least I’d like to think so.

And I’m curious how we got here from there. Here and now, with our chemically manufactured, emotively, Pavlov-ian tailored products to seduce our every sense….. from the smell of McDonalds fries to the “sea-breeze, linen” scented Lysol cans that smell nothing like a sea-breeze or fresh linen, but rather their chemical counterparts that have been constructed to closely mirror their original superiors. The verisimilitude of the imposter often hard to recognize. But when you have stood on the edge of a ship in the ocean, or frolicked in between sun-lit crisp line dried sheets, you know this difference. You know this difference like you know real love by the softness of a tongue, like you know your best friend's body-movements, and like you know of the blood that whirls through your veins when you're hanging off the edge of yourself. When you know this difference, real, the prototypes of these things becomes sacrosanct to your thriving existence. The imposter nearly unbearable, and absolutely unacceptable. And if you want crisp linen sheets, you'll wash them yourself, rather than spraying them from a can. No matter how inconvenient it may be.

In the south, summer is unbearable without air conditioning. A metal clicking, energy-sucking unit plugged into the wall that indeed conditions your environment to be conducive to functioning without having to shower every 15 minutes. But I can’t help but feel something very good is lost in the churning in and out of re-constructed and conditioned air particles. I have no tolerance for a/c blowing directly on me. I prefer to be hot and perspiring than to have contrived ice-air bellowing around me from fans, or machines, or car dashboards. It feels as if it’s an attempt to further homogenize the soul, the natural commitment a human body has to the organic earth, as uncomfortable as it sometimes may be. I’m not saying there is some conspiracy being plotted and primed, but for me personally, these machines make me cold in more than one way. Cold and conditioned are not of much interest to me.

Maybe I’ll move to Mexico.

The beauty of uncertainty

Sometimes, if not more often than not, the words of others speak truths which your mind has yet to let you articulate. The words and creations of others propel us into our future states... into a better developed and functioning mind. Here's something I thought was so eloquently written....on a topic that is often in my thoughts, especially at present.

HoBO Magazine
(www.hobomagazine.com)
Issue Number 5

The Beauty of Uncertainty
BY BRIAN HENDRICKS

"Doubt is not a pleasant situation, but certainty is absurd." Voltaire

People with missing children. Children without parents. People without food or water. There are many who are destroyed by not knowing what the future holds. For those of us more fortunate, the beauty of uncertainty is that it motivates us to seek certainty. We are compelled to replace doubt with conviction, to replace confusion with clarity, to be more fearful of old ideas instead of new ones. Nothing is more disparaged than the person who is lost, hesitant, and anxious. Yet the true path to fulfillment comes from these conditions. Uncertainty becomes truly beautiful when connected with the certainty that there is a better life beyond the life that is known. The artist, scientist, entrepreneur, athlete, and traveller: all embrace uncertainty as their muse. What is going to happen next is more enticing than what is happening now. The thrill of anticipation, the mystery of the unknown, the open road, mistakes as portals of discovery, the inevitability of change, purpose from chaos, questions leading to answers, failure as the threshold of knowledge. All of these conditions inform the life of the adventurer, the human being who is engaged in becoming. The beauty of uncertainty is that it prepares us to embrace life in the face of death. Allows us the strength to deal with the freedom to choose. To willingly exchange the fear of uncertainty for the security of certainty is to admit defeat. To surrender to the fear of actually living your life. As T. S. Eliot observed, "Where is the life we have lost in living?" Nothing moves forward except by the craving to seek certainty from uncertainty.

"For without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith." Soren Kierkegaard

We are prone to fear. The world is a mass of confusion. Traditions are ridiculed. Mythologies are forgotten. True freedom is a curse. Natural disasters are unnaturally common. Celebrities have replaced heroes. Ideals have been replaced by images. Many are running scared and only too willing to embrace the forces that offer a respite from the winds of change. What can we believe in? God, country, ourselves? What can we be certain about? Death, decay, oppression? What are we willing to risk, defend, support and dream? What would we like to be certain of: life span, love life, finances, and security? Can we gain anything without giving something up? Is there faith without risk? If you knew without question what was going to happen next, would there be any real satisfaction in it happening? The greater the risk, the greater the faith. Embracing uncertainty is to say yes to life: to say yes to the death and destruction, the success and failure, the tragedy and the triumph. Lord Byron said that the great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain. The beauty of uncertainty is that it allows us to overcome our fear. It allows us to take risks so we can experience faith. A life without uncertainty is the end of the imagination; the death of the imagined; the negation of faith.

"I think the main reason I travel, if I were to sum it up in one word, is for ambiguity." Pico Iyer

Why are the least informed so certain and the thinkers so full of doubt? Our culture is a business and we are the shareholders. We strive to maximize our profits, to eliminate ambiguity in favour of certainty. What is the film we all want to see, what is the book we all want to read, who is the icon we all want to emulate? How can we be different yet all be the same? Amuse us. Distract us. Assure us. Guide us. Tell us what to do and how to do it. Let Martha Stewart design our kitchen, Dr. Phil will raise our kids, Dreamworks will provide our narratives, and ad execs will supply our thoughts. Where can we even find true ambiguity in a world of invented certainty? Who’s dreams are we dreaming? We travel to experience ambiguity. To remind ourselves of the diversity of landscape and the spontaneity of existence. To feel the sheer exhilaration of a new experience. To remind ourselves of the endless possibilities that our lives consist of. The journey we are on is fraught with difficulty. No one here gets out alive. We are constantly challenged to perform, to succeed, to overcome our difficulties and win the race. We come to realize that performance itself answers the challenge. That life is ultimately defined by our difficulties. The race is won in the opportunity to run it. The beauty of uncertainty is that it is ambiguous and ambiguity encourages us to create, search, explore, and travel. As one of us once said, "When you are tired of change, you are weary of life itself."

"It's one thing to be certain. But you can be certain and be wrong." John Kerry addressing George W. Bush in Presidential Debates, 2004.

The world has never been more chaotic despite assurances that the situation is under control. The only thing under control is the manipulation of perception. Global warming is a scare tactic. None of George’s friends are getting rich from Middle East oil. Freedom is America’s greatest export. Baghdad will get its Disneyworld. Let’s not quibble over details like weapons of mass destruction. Osama Bin Laden? Axis of Evil? Crusades? The American Presidential election was a victory of certainty over uncertainty. Tell us what we want to hear and we will follow you. The message was there is little beauty in uncertainty. That uncertainty is ugly, and dangerous, and destructive. We must have resolve. We must kill or be killed. You are either with us or against us. Confusion is a luxury we can’t afford. The religious right is never wrong. Give us your fear of the unknown and we will turn it into the security of the known. Go back to sleep where you will be safe under the intoxication of your agreeable illusions. If you shine a flashlight in a dark room there is light everywhere the flashlight is pointed. We live in a world wherein we are compelled to follow whoever is handling the flashlight. We ignore the reality of the darkness that exists wherever the light is absent. The darkness is the uncertainty and the light is the beauty that helps us overcome it. But we need to hold the flashlight ourselves and recognize that the darkness exists. The people who are selling us certainty can indeed be wrong. As Goethe said, "When ideas fail, words take over." The beauty of uncertainty is it allows ideas to cultivate and grow and hopefully transcend the tyranny of the untested word.

"Man can be destroyed but not defeated." Ernest Hemingway.

The recent tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. Thousands killed, millions displaced. Entire villages gone forever. Unparalleled uncertainty. Where is the beauty to be found here? How limited our vocabulary becomes when confronted with the often devastating forces of nature. All perspective is lost. Better to remain mute than to scream obscenities at the storm. But perhaps the beauty is to be found in the stories of the survivors? In the stories of people helping people. The rich helping the poor. Christians embracing Muslims. Warships dispensing medicine instead of missiles. Already we have witnessed one of the most humane and heroic aid operations in world history. Unprecedented acts of compassion and generosity. Combatants have paused in their battlefields to reflect on their own inadequacy in killing fellow human beings in comparison to this subtle shift of the earth’s weight. Will this holocaust of uncertainty lead to the resolve necessary to eliminate the disparity between the first world and the third? Will we gain the wisdom required to create a future rather than add to the destruction? Hopefully we will stay reminded of how fragile life can be. Learn to appreciate what we have, instead of what we think we need. Realize we are all in this together. Recognize the unparalleled beauty that comes out of unparalleled devastation. Our thoughts and tears go out to those who have lost everything and everyone. There is no one to blame. We can only accept the uncertainty and continue on.

'The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.' Ursula K Leguin

Hobo Issue #5. Living with uncertainty. Who reads us? What do we have to say? Why are we compelled to say it? Who is willing to advertise with us? Who wants to come on board and travel with us into the future? What makes us think the world needs another magazine and are we even a magazine? William Blake said, "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise." Let’s hope so. We venture into 2005 with the hope that Oscar Wilde was just being facetious when he observed that it is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. We have gathered some writers, photographers, thespians, models, artists, thinkers, and people of the planet who have contributed to and therefore have an understanding of the beauty of uncertainty. We welcome the chameleon prowess of actress Naomi Watts. We revisit the diverse film worlds of Barfly and Jean Luc Godard’s Notre Musique. We travel to the realm of the grizzly bear and the enigmatic landscapes within Quebec, Iceland, Ibiza and Japan. Music is celebrated with profiles of Feist, John Frusciante, and Donovan Frankenreiter. The life of the artist is appreciated through encounters with Seu Jorge in Sao Paulo, Joana Preiss in Paris, and Aaron Huey in America. Fashion takes us to Vancouver Island on the west coast of British Columbia. Hobo continues to travel to mapped regions of the known world in pursuit of evidence that curiosity will conquer fear as much as courage will. We venture into unrecorded areas of the imaginary world to ascertain that life isn’t about finding yourself - life is about creating yourself. We don’t want to live in a world that is so small we can comprehend it. We collectively welcome you to the magic of the mysterious and the infinity of the unknown. "Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone." Jorge Luis Borges.

Follow your bliss. Imagine. Seek the high road. Know thyself. Embrace the earth. Stay awake. Hobo invites you to the journey, and to the beauty of uncertainty.

Dear Friend,

Dear Friend,

As I sit here alone, after days of little sleep, and impending disillusion that such misuse of the body typically evokes, I have been thinking about you. You and I, more specifically. I can’t help but wonder what pieces of our puzzle, our ever more intricate web of conversation, experience, warm hands on hands all build up to right this second. I could be in your thoughts just as easily as I could not exist at all. I wonder which it is, and I wonder what it one day will become.

Because you see, my friend, this skin that I have met you in, is so stifling sometimes. We get so accustomed to these fancies, the paradigms of proper conversation, standard course of action, we’re so set in our ways we don’t even realize it on an average day. And we can talk, we can provoke thought and conversation, and know that the company we’re in, is privileged and true. But my friend, I wonder what more lies just beneath. Just slightly beneath where we’ve already gone, past the clean glistening plastic honey encasement of this human form, just a slight fracture on the unwilling skin and structure, to leak even the slightest ray of light, of the embers that flee from their confinement like school children on recess in an autumn afternoon. Just a slither of it, that place, that substance which created you, the place that can siphon all the atoms, and chemicals, and inexorably tied soul from one heart directly to the other. The real, the truth that would tie you to altruistic ties with a friend for life. Where faith and truth are kind, and consistency of kindness and dependability as a friend is never questioned. No hidden agendas, or false desires, just an eternal band-aid on your soul that’ll always be there to keep the fracture from destroying you. Pure Love will now allow for anything less. And Pure Love is a nearly extinct commodity.


I would like to live with every one of my friends in that place. And I try. But even friends will rip the bandage off, without even trying. The good heart that gives, will just as soon be trampled on, as it will be cradled. And it’s paralyzing.

Paralyzing to know the likelihood of such vulnerability and honesty, yet letting the fracture bleed, every time you find a prospect worthy of it (which of course, is not often).
I have very few friends who are wholesome and true, through and through. Friends who treasure this blessed fracture, and revel in the lifeline within such ties.

So, friend, I am thinking of you in highest regards and wondering which one of these friends you will one day become. We should never be able to know at present, for it is time, the ever-towering monument of ultimate truth, that will enlighten us eventually.

I have been experimenting with operations in truth. In experimenting with your human confines to seek what is true to you, what seems inexplicably right for you. You can seek whatever piques your curiosity or desire for experience, anything at all, just as long as your intentions are honest to anyone else they may affect, and of course, to yourself. When you place such faith in truth, no matter how terrifying questioning the long ago constructed gates and barriers of conditioned living, and a conditioned, biased, right vs. wrong, no matter how futile it may seem, the discoveries you will uncover are such enlightening nuggets of vibrance and jubilation, you’ll never again think twice about sticking to your new path of truth.

And when you do, you have to defend yourself as you walk down it, from all the ones who haven’t been fortunate enough yet to be graced with so much love and good blessings. They will eat you alive if you let them. And because you can no longer see evil, since it does not exist to you, it is nearly impossible to recognize these spies and assassins. It’s only once they have been invited in for tea and a place to rest on your couch, that you can see the truths or mistruths of another human, another soul.

And so my friend, I hope you stay here in good company. For future cups of tea, conversation, and love. I don’t expect anything but what the day provides, but I have hope and faith in something great. So please hang on, please remember these things. The rewards for us both could be so sublime. If you’ll just be kind, I will promise to try and always do the same.