Rant of The Skinny Man

A few months ago I read an article in the newspaper. It was about how Mars have reduced the size of the famous Mars Bar. Now I read this and think “What the fuck?” but this was not the angle the article chose to take. They preferred to say it was a social choice from Mars to help combat the obesity problems in society. Again, what the fuck?! No doubt the genius marketing gurus at Mars figured they could make their product shitter (but not cheaper) and pass it off through some positive publicity. But I’ll save my rant on advertising for later. No, my friends, my qualms arise from the fact that I like, nay, I love Mars Bars. I’m a skinny guy. I’m as far from obesity as one could be while staying healthy. Does Mars consider the fact that I need more calories because of my incredible metabolism? Does Mars consider that when I feel like a Mars Bar I want a decent serving size? I am willing to put up with the price hikes, you know inflation, sure whatever, but a reduction in the size? C’mon, they just make us skinny guys suffer because the fatties can’t balance a chocolate bar with a sit up. And it doesn’t stop here. As a kid I loved 2 minute noodles like nothing else. Now the noodles are ‘baked not fried’. For those who don’t understand the lingo, that means they ‘taste like shit’. The flavour mix is even worse as well. Instead of the glorious full flavour of yesteryear, it tastes like my dog pissed on a cube of chicken stock. Everywhere I look I see same shit happening, robbed of the chance to truly indulge. Just cut us skinny guys some slack. Leave the full fat items on one shelf and the low flavour ones separate. And if the fatties keep choosing full flavour and get sick then maybe that’s just natural selection.

- Eden (while listening to Between The Buttons by The Rolling Stones)

Mental Post Script:

Compassionate Eden: Uhh, I don’t know about this one guys, it’s a little callous.
Humorous Eden: I thought we were just trying to be funny…
Heartless Eden: Funny? Pfff. Just shut the fuck up, you pussies and let the fatties die. There’s too many people on earth anyway.
Self conscious Eden: This doesn’t really fit with the free love attitude of our recent posts.
Heartless Eden: Who gives a shit? The compassion fag gets heard every fucking blog.
Humorous Eden: Nah, you guys are just joshin’ me aren’t you? It’s funny. Yeah I still got it baby!
Self conscious Eden: I don’t know man. I’m not even sure if this PS ‘bit’ is funny…
Humorous Eden: What?! This is hilarious…right?
Economics student Eden: Well it’s a smart move by Mars and if the ‘fatties’ get diabetes then our taxes subsidise their medication anyway.
Compassionate Eden: I’m OK with that.
Humorous/Self Conscious Eden: I’m funny, aren’t I guys?
Heartless Eden: Motherfuckers...

Relativity

When I read Robert Thurman's book, Infinite Life, a word that stood out for me was relativity. Everything is relative. But it was one of those things where I understood it, yet experience is needed to fully grab ahold of it's meaning. And the other day, I caught a glimpse of that true meaning.

Sometimes I think of how small we are in our lives and the fact that we are just a blip on the radar. There is so much more that is bigger than me and I truly am inconsequential. And I thought the other day, I guess I wouldn't mind if I died because of the loss of ego involved in my new found tininess, and that's true, but only relative to the rest of the universe. But I had this image of Dr Manhattan from The Watchmen, and how he realized that even if human existence isn't important to him because he now exists far beyond the world of humans, he found out that it IS important to the humans, because they ARE human. So that's where relativity comes in, because me dying may not be important to the galaxy when you take into account how small we are, but relative to an ant, we are not small. And relative to other humans, we are perfectly in line, and we are important.

So I think to live a healthy life, I'm going to need to find a middle ground and alternate between different scopes of relativity, because I definitely know that I value both my small, grain of sand existence and also my wonderful, controlled, powerful existence here, right now, in this body. Relative to myself.

- Lee

Go With What You Know - Part III: My Existential Experience

Previously:

Parts I & II

Eden, the former Catholic, learned that experience in this religion lead to making informed decisions based on the knowledge gained from said experience. This simple concept was then applied to all the possible wonders of life – art, books, music, movies, food, travel, meditation, etc. He realised that if he wished to have knowledge of something, anything, then it must be experienced.

***

Now I reached a fun time in my life by this point. The last two of the above examples came into their own with a trip to South America and a meditation camp. There was still all the music, movies and books to explore, but my natural curiosity wanted more. I had left my spiritual outlet years earlier and now I wanted something more to satiate my soul. This is where the meditation came in. I was fresh off of a ten day course and doing volunteer farm work at a Hare Krishna-run organic farm. The combination of organic vegetarian food, 2 hours of meditation a day, simple farm work, yoga, lack of drugs and plentiful spare time led me to go deeper.

Using my simple theory of experience I tried to define all existence with my own religion (I did have a lot of time on my hands), and a couple of days later I had the forgings of a theory. It was based on three levels of existence:

“All We Have is Now” – The Flaming Lips

Physical

Obviously we all exist in a physical sense. We have our five senses to constantly gauge the make up of our surroundings. Whether we look at it as a human being eating an apple or one mass of ever changing atoms interacting with another to sustain the life force within, it is all a physical existence.

Originally I summed up physical existence as the three dimensions of space, existing in the fourth dimension of time. I can’t however speculate as to the presence of a fifth dimension and beyond because I have not experienced it, and do not know if it can even be defined in a physical sense. Speaking of fourth dimensions, I keep saying that if I can’t experience something than it doesn’t exist. So what does that say of the past or the future?

So how do we define physical existence? My body experiencing a moment right Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now Now.

“Nice Dream” – Radiohead

Mental

On what plane does a thought exist? It seems as though thought can exist absent of actual physicality. When we dream, there is no denying that we believe everything that we experience within (until we return to the physical world and forget most of what ‘happened’). We can create anything in the world with our imaginations. If we try we can convert it into a book or a song or a movie, but where did it come from?

So how do we define mental existence? My mind being able to choose to exercise free will because it is free to do so.

“All You Need is Love” – The Beatles

Spiritual

Do we exist in a spiritual sense? I already abandoned the concept once. Choosing to not believe in God. Does God exist? Have I experienced God? The idea of spiritual existence is much less tangible yet I am equally assured that the soul exists in some form. How else can I explain the love I feel for George Harrison when he says we are all one, or for Wayne Coyne saying happiness makes you cry? What about our desire to find connectivity on this world through friends and loved ones?

I disagree with many things a church might say but when they say God is Love, I can’t argue. Love, to me, is a limitless power that I hardly understand and one of the few things I know exists.

So how do we define spiritual existence? The soul? Love? Infinity?

***

I guess there has to be a point to all this, right? Don’t despair. There is. If you combine these three planes of existence there is one simple message which no religion could dispute:

Choose Love Now

- Eden (while listening to The Man Who Sold the World and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie)

You Are Your Teacher

When I write a blog preaching something amazing and mind blowing like this, or this, I’m not claiming to be an expert on ‘acceptance’ or ‘anger management’, in fact, quite the opposite - I’m still very much learning all these things myself. So, I’ve only just come to the realisation that anger for instance is something that has a huge impact on our lives (our happiness) and taming it is pretty handy. It’s only during and after writing the articles do I realise how much I have to learn.

This is the case for anything, if you don’t play the piano, you’ll already know that there is a lot that goes into it and that it’s rather complicated. But if you begin to learn, only then do you begin to uncover all the intricacies and nuances.

I guess all this leads me to realise something, taking time for self reflection is incredibly important, not only does it allow us to see our flaws but most importantly, it allows us to decipher the truth behind the flurry of emotions we experience everyday and to see what’s important in our lives.

"Do you realize - that you have the most beautiful face" - The Flaming Lips

- Dogman

Tisk Tisk Tisk...

When I smoke marijuana alone, a natural plant that has been used by humans since 3000 BC, I tap into a subconscious sense in my brain and it helps with my music writing. A lot of amazing melodies have come after smoking THC. And I am not out of it. I am comprehending everything that is going on, only now I can focus on the music in a different, more subconscious way and I enjoy the way the melodies flow out of me.

When I smoke marijuana with a group of people, we all laugh, but it is not pointless. We are laughing at something real, it's just that now, in this state of mind, we are looking at it from a different angle.

And sometimes, looking from different angles can open your perception of what is being shown to you. For example, when we watch ads normally, we zone out, letting the ad invade our subconscious so that the next time we go shopping, we just feel the need to buy a certain product, which is what they want. But watching TV advertisements becomes educational with marijuana, because you can clearly see the hypocrisies and the fact that ALL companies are lying to us. I would much rather be aware of the lies than to just be a cog in the wheel and let that part of the world have its way with me.

Through this, I realized that we are living in a world that doesn't know what to do. We have created way too many people, so we need them all to have jobs. And to create more jobs, we need more stores. And to create more stores, we need more wants. So we have advertisements to create an artificial need. We need shopping malls to put all these stores in. And everybody goes, always going back to our cars with more than we had coming in. All this is not conspiracy stuff, they are all clear facts that an economist could tell you. But I'm not an economist, and I realized this, a truly sensible and enlightening thought, after smoking marijuana.

After smoking marijuana, you can read between the lines, which is why people have always enjoyed subversive forms of art after smoking. The subtext is easily readable, and you can find what is hidden between the looks, phrases and happenings in a subtle piece of art.

The only negative thing I've heard about marijuana is that some people have smoked way too much and formed schizophrenia. Well if you ate too much chocolate, you'd get fat and die.

There has never been a case of someone dying from marijuana, or even becoming damaged from its use (not abuse), and anyone that finds they react negatively to this drug, then it's just not for you. Hey, some people are lactose intolerant but the government doesn't ban milk!

- Lee