Today I found out I’m having a baby boy. It caused a change in me, something profound happened when I learned the sex. As if my mind, my imagination went crazy and truly saw the possibilities of our life together. I saw him and my Ji together. I saw him bringing someone home to introduce to us. I heard him asking me questions.
And what it also did was make me evaluate the person I am. Who do I want to be for my son? I want to be someone who strives for what he believes in. I want to be someone who sails over his hurdles. Someone who tries and tries and tries and tries and tries again. I want to be my son’s hero.
The walls of fear have crumbled. The anger I hold, the fear I hold, all the negative emotions I hold near and dear, I now command them to work with me — or at the very least, get the hell out of my way. Because nothing would anger me more, scare me more, than having a child — having my child — be disappointed in me.
I, like a great deal of you, devour media like it’s Rupert Murdoch’s business. I’m always on the hunt for new things to watch. Be it new to me or new to the world. This is just a nice little way for me to keep up with all I’m digesting. I guess I’m calorie watching.
APPETIZER
Because of Planet Money, I’ve been listening to Rihanna’s Man Down over and over and over — and over and over — especially while riding my bike over the Williamsburg Bridge. I don’t know why, it just gets me pumped!
And to keep up the reggae theme, I immediately follow up Rihanna with some Major Lazer. Lost is a fun cover of Frank Ocean’s original. Listen below:
MAIN COURSE
Tame Impala – Currents
WOW. This album has been on serious heavy repeat this entire week.
The moment I heard Let It Happen, I knew I liked the entire album. Then I heard The Moment, and I was in love. Then The Less I Know The Better. Then Past Life. ‘Cause I’m A Man. Love/Paranoia. It’s a spectacular album. I can only imagine the experience of hearing it live.
After reading A Little Life, I need to read something light. Enter Orson Scott Card. I finished Ender’s Game, and now I’m back to needing something heavy. Enter David Graeber. I only just started Debt: The First 5,000 Years, but already in its first two chapters I’ve learned a great deal about the misconceptions of money’s beginnings.
Plus I already found this great little gem:
We will not spear you, for we have already speared you with our penises.
I mean…
DESSERT
TV has been incredibly boring lately, so I’ve resorted to just re-watching The Wire. Season 3. Shiiiiiiit. An episode here, an episode there, my love of great television writing has been invigorated.
Before bed, I’ve been reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. Recommended to me over a year ago by a very drunk girl at a party, I never found the time to read it. But now, my girlfriend has been at her mother’s all week and I’m missing her like whoa, so I figured me and Florentino have a lot in common right now.
DIGESTIF
That’s it for now. But before I go, I must say this.
Ahem.
OH MY BABY-PUNTING JESUS CHRIST!!! RICK AND MORTY RETURNS THIS SUNDAY! HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT.
With the recent images of Pluto emerging, it only confirms this teaching: love your pain.
In astrological terms, Pluto is our shadow side; the side of us we keep locked in the closet of our grandmother’s basement, who we haven’t called in over a year because she reminds us about our miserable childhood. Yep, it’s that tucked away.
But look at this heart:
Source: NASA
Kahlil Gibran says “pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” We’ve come to the understanding that pain is bad. Seek pleasure, avoid pain. What if we sought out pain? Push ourselves to cross that thin border which keeps pain and pleasure at odds.
A man looks out his small circular window into the vastness of space, seeing the last remnants of the speeding planet zoom past. The sound of rain and thunder surround him.
He gives a defeated smile, clears his throat and says, “my time’s almost up.”
He looks at his arms, the cables protruding from them, the only things keeping him alive. He looks above him, sees the camera and small speaker above him and looks directly into it.
“Good job, folks. I was hardly uncomfortable for the last ten years—really good work. And, for anyone that hasn’t done this, orbiting the entire solar system is absolutely breathtaking. We should all do it at least once in our lifetime. Even if it’s cut short.”
He looks out the window again, has a very quick moment of panic, “shit! Shit, shit. What was your message, Lorraine? When you see Mercury, tell him—damn. I’m sorry Rain.
“You must be jumping out of your uniform—whoever you are tasked with watching these logs. You’ll have about 10 years of dead air, listening to the nature sounds I requested to be played. Hopefully you find it as soothing as I did.”
A few days go by. He wakes up after some time of deep thought.
“Why? Why stay silent over the years?
“Because I’m not guilty. It really is that simple. I managed to hold on to some false sense of pride during my sentence in this pod. Something I feel I was able to let go of as I orbited Earth one last time. To which I must add, bravo guys. This is the cleverest way to send someone to prison. I can’t imagine how much it costs, but hey, at least I go out in style and my years of perceived inaction have the privilege of being archived in a great hall of nothing. Silence serves as my own little rebellion.”
His smile hangs tight on his face. He looks out his window, far off into the nothing he has come to term with.
“There was a time when I desperately wished to return home. To Earth. But like I said, I let go of my pride—and more than just my pride—when I orbited Earth the last time. I saw my home planet cast me out like space trash. At this point, I’m no more than junk. I became a singular point of consciousness with no home. Home became this pod—home became this body,” he looks down at himself and gets lost in the stare. He looks at himself as if he hasn’t seen himself in years. Maybe it has been years. He smiles brightly. Remembrance.
“My home was lost the moment Rain took her last breath—when I stood over her and ensured she did in fact take her last breath.”
He looks out the window. After a long moment of silence he opens up.
“To say I murdered my wife is pure propaganda. If you shared out last moments together, you’d see the beauty in her death, in her willingness to go to the Great Nothing. Rain had a great sense of knowing—an intuition that went beyond the physical plane. Maybe it was due to her illness, forcing her to stop and be, to slow down and truly be with herself.
“The great sages of millennia past used to say the universe speaks through you once you’re silent. Or something along those lines—Rain got real spiritual once she got sick. But maybe she was right. Maybe these sages are right. Maybe we, as people, need to, once in a while, stop and just listen to the beat of our hearts. Stop and,” he takes a moment, listens to the rain, the thunder, he smiles, “listen to the beauty of nature.”
“I helped my wife die, but I did not murder her. The thought of murdering her sickens me, makes me want to puke, but I can’t because of these damn drugs keeping my body healthy. It’s comical to me, I’m part of a humanity that scoffs at the idea of assisted suicide. Though we’ve invented great technical feats to keep a man alive in space for 10 years, and in the end, he’ll majestically plummet into the Sun. I’m part of a species that believes in death as a penalty.
“What more can I say, huh? I am one man and I won’t be changing the entire system anytime soon.” He looks out the window and sees Mercury just as it disappears. The pod’s trajectory now heads towards the Sun.
“Hermes has left the building, it’s me and you now, Apollo.”
“How did you know, Rain? How’d you know it would come down to this? Maybe I knew it too and chose not to listen. You were always smarter than me, better than me, seven steps ahead. Even before you were sick, your intuition was usually spot on. You told me the moment you saw me you knew you’d be with me until your final days. I didn’t dare believe it and even now I hold on to a shred of doubt, choosing to believe this is a rather strange dream and once day I’ll wake up next to you.”
“Rain, I now know you’re watching. By some account, you’ve always been watching. I was scared to do what you asked me to do, but I’ve come to terms with my decision to help you depart. And these last 10 years of listening to you speak through the sounds of nature have taught me you’ve never left me. I close my eyes and there you are. Smiling and waving at me to come to you. This is the best image you could have ever given me.”
As the light of the sun grows stronger and stronger, He is at peace, he closes his eyes and rests. He smiles, then begins to laugh. He laughs and laughs. When he composes himself he opens his eyes and says, “hey Mercury, why don’t you slow the fuck down.”
This song, this blog, this week — all of it compounding to this: hearing my own God’s whisper. My own mind finally working with me as opposed to against me.
Since 2012, I had an incredibly regimented meditation practice. Twice a day, at least 20 minutes each, every single day. My intuition was strong, I wasn’t bothed by the minutia of my day-to-day, I was writing and the stories were coming to me. I felt amazing.
2014… New year. I decided to quit my job, move home to NYC, and change careers. The catalyst: a woman.
Fast forward. That relation ended. I started a new one.
What’s the point of that history? Well, the personal turmoil did a number on my meditation practice. I couldn’t sit and look inward because all it did was make me sad, or upset, or nostalgic, or just plain bored. So for months I stayed locked out of my own mind. Doing whatever I could to gain a semblance of mental control: read, walk, journal, talk, listen to music, yoga. They worked, but the effects were short lived. I couldn’t truly deal with anything, my relationship was falling apart, my writing had halted, I didn’t feel creative, all I kept thinking was “what am I doing?”
Then me and my girlfriend almost broke up. And, if I’m honest with myself, it was my fault. And that’s when I decided: there is no other priority in my life other than meditation. Not my relationship, not my family, not my career, nothing. They all go through the lense of meditation.
I began using an app called Productive to keep track of my meditations and to not break the chains. As of today, I have a nine day streak. The last couple days have given me such mental clarity, such purpose; my intuition spoke to me. I discovered my “why.” Why do I get up in the morning? Why do I do what I do in the morning?
I asked myself Why? And I whispered:
Because I have to uplift.
Because I have to speak to younger generations.
Because I have to create futures.
Because I have to heal.
I don’t know what the future entails. Alls I know is: don’t break the chain.
After reading 
