Im an addict!

      First step of recovering, says the literature on beating any addiction, is acknowledging it; "beating the dragon," " conquering your demons," all clichés one can think of, point to the core of any addiction: it is not about the drug you ingest, but human beings need to self medicate their psychological afflictions. 

     It's about pain; pain that you don't recognize you have; pain that lies so deep inside all of us that we engage together in destructive activities searching for a bit of happiness.  And we create a family of sorts to display our pain, Leo Tolstoy said it beautifully in Anna Karenina: " All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its on way." 

     Together we engage in our drug of choice, the demons inside each of us tormenting us into behavior we will regret just about the time we succumb to it: shame and low self worth seeping more and more into the fabric of us. Demons that make us take drugs, drink, take countless selfies, abusing others on social media is a new ceremony  we engage to destroy and be destroyed. All the while feeling a fleeting happiness that's so sweet that we want more of it. Immediately after the shame subside. 

     And my shame is somewhat justified since I'm not addicted to any cool drug that would make me edgy, cool; a paragon of artistic display that would make Jackson Pollock proud. No, I've never been drunk in my entire life, don't touch alcohol. Drugs, for some reason, very early on was the things losers do and so I escaped that too. There's nothing cool about my addiction, in fact is not even illegal. We sell to men, women, them, they, children and even pregnant women. We built shelves at supermarkets at a child's eye level so that they can get addicted too;  and we offer flavors such as heart attack, diabetes, diabetes type 2, diabetes type 3- formally known as Alzheimer's disease- obesity, amputations, strokes, pulmonary embolism and many many more.

I am addicted to sugar; and my drug dealer was my beloved grandmother.

     My grandmother would take an empty glass and place on the table; because I was so young, around four or five years old, my eyed level, directly across the surface of the table would give me a perfect view, and I watched her take two containers and place them next to the glass. She would take a spoon and fill half of the glass with the white powder; then she would shift her attention to the second container, and would fill the other half of the glass with a brown power. She would slide the glass to me and hand me the spoon; and I would take my time enjoying my chocolate powder and sugar cocktail. The most ironic memory of it; the countless times they told me to calm down. I had the strange habit of climbing every tree I encountered, tap on my chest, late at night, my favorite songs until the moment I collapsed into sleep or I would get hit with something to quiet me down. Whichever came first. 

     No movie star, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician would admit in public this sort of addiction; yet it causes more deaths than drunk drivers and  overdoses combined. At the end of World War II we counted around 15,000 amputations in the six years the war lasted. Diabetes causes roughly around 420,000 amputations in 6 years.

     I long lost my grandmother, so my supplier these days is Starbucks. And they are amazing at it. 24 hours a day. Everywhere I walk in United States I can find one within a few blocks of each other. 

2 butter croissants lightly toasted

1 lemon loaf

1 tall dark roast coffee with 1 raw sugar- in a grande cup.

$ 14.40  ( in Santa Monica, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades )

$13.40  ( anywhere else in Los Angeles )

     Close every liquor store in the world and unless someone told me, I wouldn't notice. I wouldn't  know where to begin looking for drugs to buy if my live depended on it and yet, my life depends on giving up drugs. At least if I want to assure a better quality of life to my older self.  After many prolonged fasting and being sugar free for months and months only to succumb again and again to it, I decided to approach this addiction in a different way. . 

I went for a hike at Griffith park and while admiring the Hollywood sign had a serious conversation with myself. More a visualization than anything else. I imagined myself at sixty, seventy, eighty years old and honestly asked myself a simple question: 

what kind of debilitating disease are you willing to suffer from in you twilight years?

The answer was an emphatically: NONE. So I just gave up sugar again. For more times than I can recall.

     So I ask the same from you: what kind of disease are you willing to suffer from:? Because even thought we've never met I know that you are as addicted as I am. In conversations with people about my concerns, I always hear back that they eat sugar in moderation and that is the same as stating that you take poison in moderation. But the odds are not in my favor that you are even reading this now; you probably stopping reading at the second paragraph once you realized that my addiction was to sugar. How pathetic!

     To that, I challenge you to stop. Cold turkey. No more sugar. No more more refined carbs: bread, pasta, pizza. None of it. Fast for five days straight drinking only water with pink Himalayan salt for electrolytes and minerals. If you don't cheat, you will realize by the second day how seriously addicted you are and you will stop judging addicts for being so weak and unable to get their lives together. Your third day without sugar will make you wish you were dead.

     In the event you are able to complete the five days, you don't get to praise yourself and return to sugar. You are done. You will never touch a pipe again, snort, shoot or whatever other way people ingest drugs. You can't eat bread ever again; no more pasta, no more pizza no more sweets or deserts of any kind. You will cleanse your body and remain in ketosis until your final days. 

You are sugar free. Congratulations! Now we can sit together and wait to get a glimpse of Dante and Virgil when they walk by; or Godot. 

    

The Human Existence in SEVEN BOOKS...

 I began reading these books again in the order bellow,  I think it depicts the emotional arc of our very short existence..

1

| The Very First Bible |

2

| Ernest Beckers's THE DENIAL OF DEATH |

3

| Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO | ****

4

| Echhart Tolle's  A NEW EARTH |

5

| Miguel de  Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE |

6

| Dante Alighieri's DIVINE COMEDY |

7

| Antoine de Saint-Exupéry" THE LITTLE PRINCE |

**** For my fellow Brazilian artists that for whatever the fucking reason still enamored of communism. They call it something else but they are not fooling anyone. Especially when the president of Brazil loves Fidel Castro and choses China and Venezuela as partners against the "evil empire" United States. I hate politics and politicians but history is clear: wanna see people truest malignant inner being flourish? Give a selected few total power and make everyone else comrades. The irony is that, every place in the world that has tried, the artists are the first to get killed; along with the gays, the faithful and everyone else with an opinion. 

A.I. doesn't like Elis Regina

Who said AI doesn't have a sense of humor? While I work away listening to a 1973 album - ENSAIOS - YouTube keeps showing me pop music stars and their master class in singing. While I listen to Elis Regina. Now, that's  hilarious!!!!

 

Elis Regina MASTER CLASS  ( a cappella )

The Emptiness in Your Life...

The Brazilian writer Fernando Sabino wrote a beautiful allegory in the form of a short story, of a group of passionate protesters who have taken to the streets and block after block more and more people joined the protest. **spoiler alert** at the end we come to find out that most people ranting had no idea what they were protesting, they'd just joined the fray.*** This is the same curse that plagues Dr. Jordan Peterson, although I have to  admit that it is of his own making. I will explain. 

A long time ago, one of my children came to me and told me of how homophobe Dr. Peterson was; and because my daughter is very smart, I asked her how many of his lectures she had watched and if she had watched the original un-edited video that is often used to accuse him of hating the gays and transgender community. She had not. That is where intelligence and common sense enters, also, my youngest daughter does not like to be wrong and so she took to youtube and that was when she EXITED THE PROTEST.

I tell all my liberal friends in Los Angeles that I agree Dr. Peterson could use a few lessons in diplomacy but hateful he is not.

I toyed with the idea of becoming a psychiatrist for a few months in college until I understood that I was just trying to save my mother so I too exited the protest but I do dislike, distrust every psychiatrist to this day. They are like police officers, only good when you need them but in the event you meet a malignant one you're in serious trouble.

The other serious issue I would have in trying to help anyone would be to see them making the same mistake again and again unable to fix it. PAUSE. DEEP BREATH. I was considering if I knew anyone with these traits and thank God I do not. 

Here Dr. Peterson gives you all you need to avoid therapy, psychiatrists and their drug prescription pads, ELECTRIC SHOCK TREATMENTS, and also the police. All in one short video.

 This information is also buried in countless novels but consider this your cheating sheet.

 *** Brazilian literature and songwriters are the reason I would chose to be born in Brazil every time, if there was ever an option. Like being Italian to be able to read Dante in the original language. 

ART and WRITING

 

BLUE MOON and the world inside

Every once in a blue moon, I know my place in the world; as if my GPS was roaming and it found me: my precise parallels, coordinates, latitude and longitude, set to now; and I feel that there is nothing beyond myself.

I feel like a tree or mountain would feel if it could feel; present in time, place and purpose. I ask if a tree or mountain would feel less, if it would want more, if it would desire, as we do, to be elsewhere, in order to  do what it can perfectly do right here.

For all the analogies we have for flying, it is on the stillness of these moments that I find myself utterly grounded, paradoxically one with the vastness of our universe.

Flying is aimlessly seeking for oneself outside of itself.

A monk sitting still in meditation and thankfulness needs no wings to fly further than a bird of any kind; nothing material can connect the vastness of the soul and oneself.

The invisible is not only essential as the Little Prince taught us, but also the only portal to ourselves, for we can't be found elsewhere of ourselves.

Every once in a blue moon we don't reflect light; light is the source inside and it shines until we once again forget to be blind to our place and time. Without our inner light, all we have left is our social climb.

                                                    

A Bench

She offered a view:

of a lake, of a sun

centerfold

framed by a tree and foliage,

green with life.

At the forefront, a bench,

which she described

as just a bench.

"Just a bench," she said

as if to save the day,

the moment that got away.

"Just a bench," she said

as if to greet the day

that in each of us awaits.

As if to bless those less blessed,

she offered a frame, a flair, a tree

sunshine, 

dispersing rays of light over me. 

"Just a bench," she said

by the lake with fishes inside

beautiful as a girl carrying a life.

A bench, a beat, another day

in the city of jazz,

or anywhere else you might be at,

a bench is never just a bench,

a bench is a memory of those who sat:

to unseize the day, to contemplate,

to pray, to give thanks, to rest

to hold hands; to mourn the ones who passed.

|  in the memory of Renee |