Please, here’s a prayer with my laughter
one from my belly.
It’s the first time I’ve laughed in days.
I don’t want to figure this spirituality thing out.
I saw what I was, reflected through someone else,
and I realized
intellectualism is the most worthless thing ever.
That’s me in the corner.
A crockpot full of ideology
and I’m guessing our dinner guests will go home starving.
And I bet our children have lost their taste for it.
Oh, my my.
Ou la la.
A soul brimming with politics and a head bursting with religion are just the new cursive and calligraphy,
and typewriters and science and theories and the laws of men and women and nature and the heavens.
We’re here to approach the clay in a new way.

Please, if you will, here’s me talking to something.
At night and in the morning.
A prayer with my mind.
Try to never pray for anything for myself.
Only others.
Because here,
here are my actions.
The strongest prayers I possess
the most potent of my arsenal
And they’re all about me.
A liar’s prayer.
Cue the big sigh.

I came to realize that my identity was forced.
And so I left the frying pan.
And the fire’s conversation reveals that I believed
in something all along.
But hey
it feels splendid.
They don’t make them like this anymore.
Cooped up and free.
Painfully devoid of oneself.
A fox running loose in the atheist hole.
Beyond tokens, symbols, words and behaviors.

Here, then.
Please.
This is for you.
A prayer with my pen.
Something I cannot name,
placed eagerly on the altar
to something
I cannot explain.

It’s yours.
Thanks.

–

c. Summer 2022, Texas Department of Criminal Justice

So yesterday, we, poets every one, sat and observed the massive clouds that sat in the sky at 7 p.m.

“Oh, this one looks like a [woman] on her knees waiting to get her [bottom] licked.”
“This one has her legs spread…”

And so forth. I was the only one who did not see what they saw.

And a part of me thought that you preferred the sexual nature and enthusiasm of the kind of man that sees a “bitch wanting her ass ate”
instead of a glorious cumulonimbus bouquet that could swallow a city block, floating impossibly above us.

—

c. Summer 2022, Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Heaven and Hell,
ladies and gentlemen,
are the same place.

Welcome to Hellven.

Your enemies are having tea with your grandma. Your spouse’s lovers are feeding your aborted children in high chairs,your dead best friends are playing ping pong with the people who blew giant holes in your life and made your therapist a fine sailor, indeed. Hellven includes new feelings, which are all the feelings at once experienced in one completely unfamiliar way. Foreign. The new frontier. There is a bonfire made from the Tree of Knowledge, root and branch, and God herself is telling stories that predate Time and extend beyond the space outside the universe.

And she’s butt ass naked.

But we’ve been reduced and upgraded into celestial octopi. When we finally arrive to the promised land, our tremendous brains and spirits and souls are distributed throughout our Hellvenly bodies into a 3.0 ganglion. The only way we can understand God’s stories is feeling them in the space between the atoms in our glittering nervous systems. Pure ecstasy being soaked into an earthworm, a dolphin understanding the principles of quantum physics. We can only experience what God tells us deep in ourbones anyway. Even the ants know it. They won’t be amazed at the secrets revealed around the cosmological bonfire because they’ve known it all for hundreds of millions of Earth-time years.

A dozen men share one pair of shower slides with the willingness of family. We must because we can. A lifetime of my remorse, distilled into one scoop of macaroni salad.
Plop.
Ew.

A triple digit meditation on my sins
until that faraway star grants me mercy.

An old man’s mother died yesterday and he wept like a child.
He received sixty cents in food as a consolation prize.

It’s so hot we can’t think.
It’s so hot that we’re poets.

Yesterday, the thing I was most grateful for
was a breeze that lasted more than half the day.
Today the thing I was most grateful for was a tiny, used deodorant stick.

Poetry is everything.
These writings are nothing.

I’m in Rosharon, Texas.
And it is hot.

–

c. Summer 2022, Texas Department of Criminal Justice

1. This is not the best platform for “Creative Writing”
   I’m not sure what is. People come here for productivity and self-improvement. Poetry and satire have a little niche, but that’s it. Do I need a Neutral Spaces account?
2. The amount time it will take to grow an audience is enormous.
   But guess what — that applies to growing an audience for anything and everything.
3. It’s fucking satisfying to hit “Publish.”
   However short. However shitty. However disjointed. It feels good to put writing into the world.
4. Writing takes more time than one thinks.
   Even stream-of-consciousness brain vomit takes effort to organize into semi-cohesive little puddles of words.
5. Writing doesn’t move the cultural needle like it used to.
   I’m pretty sure Bret Easton Ellis said this. People don’t talk about books. They talk about TV.
6. Reading and writing can still do things that no other medium can.
   ***I technically realized this while reading my first fiction book of the year. Yes, TV and Digital Content reign supreme. But they cannot create the same amount of wonder, pound for pound, that reading can. What makes this so baffling is that the written word somehow does MORE with LESS — it is the least rich media, which makes the fact that it’s unparalleled even more miraculous. This is because all the wonder takes place in our mind (the mind being a phenomenon that the highest intellect cannot explain).
7. It’s impossible for a writer to quit writing.
   That’s just the way it is.

Most of these items have global followings whose popularity will overshadow most everything I will ever do. But I just don’t get it. Send me your lists, along with a short bio, and I’ll post my favorites (possibly with commentary).

Music

1. Pearl Jam — No, thanks.
2. U2 — No.
3. Linkin Park — Absolutely not.

Books/Literature

1. Harry Potter — Pass.
2. James Joyce — Don’t get it, no. Sorry.
3. Twilight — Mm, no, but you can.

Food

1. Pumpkin Spice stuff — No, that’s ok.
2. Candy corn and/or Licorice — No thanks, I believe that only people who like lamp shades made of human skin like that stuff.
3. Taco Casa — Nah, bro, but I’ll pray for you.

Movies

1. Star Wars — Never finished a whole one.
2. Fast and the Furious — C’monnnnnn
3. Horror Movies — With the exception of Rob Zombie films, I just don’t get it.

TV

1. Seinfeld — Pass.
2. Walking Dead — Also pass.
3. Twin Peaks — I guess I’ve never actually tried, but I’m pretty sure: nope.

Art/Culture

1. Opera — Sorry, no thanks.
2. Classical Realism — Don’t get it.
3. TikTok — I can be swayed. I really enjoy IG reels anyway so it’s just a matter of time.

Today’s Earth Day and some people don’t give a shit.

Some people don’t give a shit about Earth Day (the day) while others truly don’t give a shit about the Earth (where we live). Some people don’t give a shit about why people don’t give a shit about the Earth, they just demand that people give a shit.

And that’s the problem. We want others to change their mind (never going to happen). And we want them to know THEY. ARE. WRONG.

We are right. You are wrong.

Have we ever been wrong? Have they ever been right?

People don’t feel, think or act like we think they should and the world suddenly becomes an awful place.

And so we throw fits online and nothing gets done.

Sometimes your side wins and you celebrate, and sometimes your side loses and you post online about how sad the world is (an awful place, really) and then you go to sleep in your air-conditioned home with running water and abundance of food.

Most people only give a shit about themselves.

Most people only give a shit about their own ideas, opinions and beliefs, and they are constantly shocked and appalled that people do not think, act or feel exactly the way they think they should.

Some people are still reeling from the Trump election and the existence of Trump supporters. Same with Biden. Same with literally anything they believe is not as it should be.

Some people are constantly MIND BOGGLED AND OUTRAGED about others’ sexual orientations, identities and preferences.

Some people just can’t understand why anyone would not believe in Jesus. Or Islam. Or The Beatles.

Some people live in tiny little bubble worlds and anytime that tiny little bubble world is threatened, they start foaming at the mouth.

Want to stop being shocked and angry all the time? Want to stop worrying about the fall of this fantasy land you live that’s always being threatened by THEM?

Want to improve your quality of life? Want to understand the world just a little bit more? Want to learn how to give a shit about others and maybe actually get some shit done?

Stop engaging solely with people who think just like you.

Stop only reading things that reinforce all your beliefs.

If your tiny world only contains carbon copies of yourself, you’re in for a rude awakening every time you encounter the real world.

And the chances that you’re going to encounter the real world on a daily basis are high.

Pop the bubble to that tiny world you live in and try to understand the people you consider “the opposition.” What do you have in common?

Get friends who align differently than you politically, religiously, creatively, professionally, ideologically.

Are you a champion of diversity? Then fucking diversify your inner circle.

If your convictions can’t handle stress-testing, they’re of questionable strength.

If you can only enjoy the world when it’s aligned with your perception of how it should be, your enjoyment is of questionable quality.

I don’t want my world to consist solely of people who think, act, look and feel exactly like I do.

Sometimes it’s not a matter of right and wrong — it’s just different.

And that’s ok.

The following movie previews aired before a matinee showing of the Super Mario Bros. Movie in Cedar Park, TX on April 21, 2023.

I rated, ranked, dissected and analyzed them from best to worst.

The Little Mermaid

Look, the cartoon one already stands as one of the most underrated animated Disney movies straight off the muscle. Sexist and problematic or not. Easter egg penis in the original cover artwork or not. Under the Sea can still shut shit down. Part Of Your World can melt Putin’s heart. I also like that I can already hear people complaining about Ariel being Black and her father being Iron Man. Same people that insist Jesus was white. And then it made me think: Wait, what color skin would a mermaid have? Someone should go ahead and run with that as a low-risk artistic meditation on race politics. (I’m looking at you, Donald Glover.)

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

This gets honorary second place only because it’s actively and aggressively talking shit about mermaids, knowing they would be competing with The Little Mermaid. It’s like 50 Cent and Kanye back in the day. The creators of Ruby Gillman know what they’re doing and they’re almost equipped to do it. I love me an underdog effort. Sometimes brands attacking brands comes across as petty, and sometimes they come across scrappy and brazen. This one is the latter. I will not, however, be watching this movie because one time I stopped at a gas station that was actively and aggressively talking shit about Buccee’s in a billboard planted FIRMLY IN BUCCEE’S TERRITORY. But they didn’t have their lives together and I left wishing I would’ve gone to Buccee’s. I will be watching the Little Mermaid.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Seth Rogen gets to do whatever he wants and that will forever motivate me. It’s also refreshing to see “different” forms of animation reach the mainstream and my mind wandered thinking about all of the media that we’re going to consume that doesn’t even exist yet so I don’t know what the premise of the movie is. But I will be watching this movie.

Barbie

This somehow has the same energy as The Little Mermaid in terms of people are going to be foaming at the mouth about this one, except it’s the other end of the spectrum. The people who hate this movie are going to be the same people who are mad that white people even exist. How is Issa dodging all of these flaming arrows? I’m sure it gets addressed in the film. I also respect that they’re pushing some boundaries with the adult-jokes-inside-kids-movies — so that’s also definitely going to anger the fuddy duddies. I stand behind feather rufflers.

Migration

Absolutely no clue what this is about but I’d watch it before Trolls or The Book Club movie.

Book Club: The Next Chapter

Hahahahahahahaha. Why was this shown? For the moms? For the grandmas? Wtf.

Trolls Band Together

I can’t believe Kenan Thompson is as popular as he is and that will forever motivate me. There’s truly a chance for all of us. I’ll probably just go watch The Little Mermaid again instead of this.

It’s 8:30 p.m. and I don’t want to write this.

I meant to write it first thing this morning and now it’s the only thing keeping me from unwinding for the night.

I’m full after dinner. I’m tired. I just want to go down rabbit holes on my phone or read or Instagram doom scroll or, really, anything but try to crank out a coherent piece of writing.

My daughter, who I don’t see as regularly as I would like since I don’t live in the same city, just hopped in the shower.

So I’m making myself sit down and hammer out some writing, however insignificant or little the piece may seem.

It would be dreadfully easy to just say “I’ll make up for it tomorrow. I’ll start again tomorrow. No one is going to die if I don’t write something.”

The probability of more than a few dozen people reading this is low, so it’s not like there’s an audience waiting with baited breath for me to hit “Publish.”

Why am I inconveniencing myself over something so little?

Because I know that any large accomplishment I hope to attain is composed of 1 million smaller, combined efforts.

A beginning runner needs to log massive amounts of time and effort — sometimes single-digit intervals of walking and running — before she can hope to properly begin training for a marathon.

Becoming semi-proficient at an instrument requires months upon months of being painfully shitty.

When we don’t get instant results, it’s easy to quit.

Knowing we won’t get instant results deters us from even starting.

It’s hard to see the point in saving or investing $125 a week. The needle isn’t moving enough. I need $125 today. I can’t wrap my head around compounding interest or think about my future needs.

I used to rely on the nihilistic approach and think “there’s no guarantee I’ll be here in 30 years anyway.”

That’s just a lack of discipline. That’s laziness and ignorance. That’s avoidance.

Or an even more sinister, easily justifiable excuse lodges itself in my logic-defying brain: procrastination.

“I’ll start saving once x, y and z happens.”

I’ll stop eating like shit tomorrow.

I’ll start writing next week.

I’ll start learning how to shoot real estate photos next month.

I’ll start saving once this happens. I’ll seek clients, learn this skill, invest this time and money — I’ll do all of those things later, when that happens.

Just not today, because whatever I do or don’t do today is just a little thing. One more day won’t hurt.

I used to say, “I’ll dry out and get my act together tomorrow.”

And then tomorrow turned into 20 years.

I have 1 million unfinished creative and professional projects, notebooks and digital folders full of well-intentioned, grandiosely creative carcasses. And they’re all waiting for me to resume working on them.

Tomorrow.

Why didn’t I start on them today?

Because whatever contribution I made would be too small to be worth it.

Too little.

But, just like an unceasing addiction, why can’t one day of creativity turn into two decades?

I’ve already given myself permission to make bad art, why don’t I see what happens when bad art is made consistently for a week? A month? A year?

A beautiful life is made of beautiful moments. A brilliant novel is made of brilliant chapters,

which are made of brilliant paragraphs,

which are made of brilliant sentences,

which are made of brilliant words,

which spring from brilliant thoughts

that are strung together

one

by

one.

Decades of sobriety are earned a day at a time.

Weight loss and wealth accumulation are all the enormous fruits that owe their origins to a single tiny seed.

A single genius thought sprouts from the life lived up until the point in came into existence. And that life was affected by countless other lives, and so on, all leading back to the time before life.

The universe and the Earth and the most awe-inspiring creations of beauty are all made up of infinitesimal things that took unimaginable lengths of time to reach their current form.

Little by little.

Bit by bit.

Until miracles occur.

One push up. One dollar saved. One sentence written. One session of practice.

And then again the next day.

And the day after that.

A little more each day, until it becomes my nature. Until it feels weird to not workout.

Until I can’t wait to get to write.

Every day, one little thing.

Miracles guaranteed.

Author’s Note: No one extolls the benefits of this concept better than OG triple OG Atomic Habits daddy James Clear.

This is the worst article currently available on Medium.

It’s not about anything. It doesn’t offer any tips, tricks, insight, laughs, recommendations, advice or inspiration.

This article does not inform, educate, entertain or influence.

This article does not make you mentally stronger.

This is the kind of article that tries to somehow break all of the rules and appeal to everyone. That uses broken, run on sentences while utilizing superfluously adverb-laden, academically-forged phrases that don’t really mean anything and easily get lost in a dense, single-paragraph sea of text. It reads robotic and zombie-like. It wasn’t read out loud. It’s written by someone who consumes much more than they create.

This article is unsexy, but it won’t save you 30+ hours per week.

This article isn’t the seed for an upcoming revolutionary work of art. It is not groundbreaking nor provocative.

This article was not optimized for SEO nor is it targeting a specific audience. It is not laden with keywords or buzz words — it’s a miracle that it contains any words at all.

This article doesn’t offer any relationship advice.

Unfortunately, this article wasn’t written by ChatGPT. It won’t prevent you from getting hacked on Telegram.

This article doesn’t promote anything.

This article is not a cosmic funk odyssey, nor is it a journey to the black planet.

You’ll forget about this article soon, it will dissipate into the ether along with the other millions of bits of information that you consume every day.

This is the worst article available on Medium. But this article is finished. It can be improved.

This is the worst article available on Medium. But it’s better than the article you did not write.

This is the worst article available on Medium. But it’s better than that idea that you talk about, but don’t work towards executing. It’s better than that idea you let wither on the vine and die.

This is the worst article available on Medium. But it’s better than all that art you did not create. Than all those projects you talked about starting, but never did.

This is the worst article available on Medium.

But it exists.

Bad art is better than no art.

Why do we listen to what anyone else says about anything?

Why do we read reviews and poll our friends when researching people, places and things — knowing that certain tastes can vary wildly between individuals, even if they do sometimes align? Why is it that Podcast Celebrity A can say something that we angrily dismiss as horseshit, but then turn around and take the SAME INFORMATION as the gospel truth when said by Podcast Celebrity B?

Why do we seek and implement the teachings we hear in podcasts and books and YouTube videos?

We’re constantly seeking a better life. Even if our life is pretty good, we know it can always be better.

Always.

More than 100,000 Medium writers dish out recommendations and advice on the daily — how do we know who to listen to? Other than an internet connection and a basic grasp of writing, what qualifies them to suggest 5 Ways for Me to Break the Terrible Habits that are Ruining my Mental Health and Become the Perfect Billionaire Ultra-Marathoning Father Who Sleeps 10 Hours a Night?

Our incessant advice and recommendations to others is the flip side of the same coin. Why are we always advertising — damn near evangelizing — our latest dietary, fitness, artistic and professional endeavors and discoveries?

Why do we insist we know what others need? Next time a friend or loved one is venting about their latest struggles, see how long it takes before you’re offering (unsolicited) advice.

What makes me think that anyone cares about why I’m trying minimalist running? What makes Fernando think I give two shits about his latest uncovering of another government conspiracy? Why is Gloria letting me know that raspberries are 300% off at H-E-B? (Wait. Oh shit, thank you Gloria!)

We’re looking for connection because that validates our position. It feels good. And we genuinely want to help others because that feels good, too.

We’re proud of our lives and happy with our choices and we want others to be proud and happy (and proud and happy for us), too. Yes, some of it is validation-seeking and tribalism (which aren’t always necessarily bad), but suggestions, advice and recommendations all come from a well intentioned desire to serve.

So how do we know when to listen and when to dismiss?

How do we know when to offer advice? And how do we know when to just shut up and offer (nonverbal) support?

What qualifies someone to give advice. The short answer? Experience.

Wait, but that’s not always true either.

Isn’t the world filled with business professors who have never ran a business, using a life of academia and learned knowledge to qualify them as experts? Aren’t there drug counselors who have never had a drug problem? Following that same logic, don’t we trust a doctor’s recommendations regarding an ailment she herself has never had?

That means that advanced study can (sometimes) take the place of empirical, real world knowledge. But that’s not what this post is about. Professionals are professionals for a reason. This post is about giving/receiving advice from the vast world of online advice-givers and regular, job-quitting people like you and me.

This is about knowledge we can vouch for first-hand. Here are my two rules for giving and receiving advice. (Author’s note: See how I framed them? I’m not telling you what to do, I’m telling you what I do.)

RULE #1 — I DON’T GIVE ADVICE. IF ASKED, I ONLY SPEAK ABOUT MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE (IF I HAVE ANY).

I offer my experience rather than my advice.

This is the golden rule. I can tell you what I did and what happened because of it, but I can’t guarantee doing the same will have a similar impact on your life. “I did x and y happened” is a more realistic and honest approach than “Do x and y will happen.” It’s an honesty thing.
NOTE: This ALSO applies to offering the advice of others, even if they are professionals. “Well, Brené Brown says…” No, thank you, nope. The rules still apply. Brené Brown’s advice may apply to me in this particular situation, but it could be the exact wrong thing you need to hear at that moment.

I don’t give unsolicited advice.

If people don’t ask for my input on a specific situation, I shouldn’t give it. This doesn’t mean that I’m a dead conversational fish. I will by all means engage, debate and opine, but I’m going to make sure to clearly label my opinions as such. If I have experience with the matter I can talk about what I’ve done in similar situations. But I need to catch myself before saying anything that begins with “You should…” A tricky thing to do in the world of advice-giving blogs (*cough Medium cough*) .

I make sure I consider the consequences of said advice.

Telling someone to leave a relationship or a job can have life-altering consequences. Making suggestions regarding a person’s emotional or mental health can lead to long-lasting damage or in the case of addiction, even death. If necessary (and it often is), I need to qualify myself as not being qualified if someone asks for my advice. Again, I can only speak about MY experience.

I remember that everyone is different. People take different paths to arrive at the same place.

What works for you may not work for me and vice versa. Stress-testing and second opinions are vital to decision making. I need to remember that we’re all different. Results may vary.

RULE #2 — I ONLY LISTEN TO THE ADVICE OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE WHAT I WANT.

This is the inverse of Rule #1. I only take advice from those who’ve given me reason to ask for it.

If someone has nice teeth, I’ll ask them about their hygiene routine and dentist (no, that’s not weird). If they can run farther than me or faster than me, I’ll inquire about their training (while keeping in mind that just because it worked for them doesn’t mean it’ll work for me, see above).

Similarly, I’m not going to trust the pastry recommendations of someone with six-pack abs.

If someone has something I want, I want to know how they got it.

How did you achieve this thing I want to achieve? How did you master this thing I want to learn?

What are you doing that I can also do, in order to also get what you have?

This can be perverted and taken to extremes, such as celebrity worship or unrealistic expectations about the amount of work (and time) required to achieve something. But it can also be a great motivator, if a pragmatic approach is taken.

Maybe someone can’t achieve Kardashian-like fame, but that doesn’t mean that a Kardashian-like entrepreneurial drive and ambition won’t serve them. No matter how much someone dislikes the Kardashians, their ability to capitalize on circumstance can’t be denied.

Yes, there’s something to be learned from everyone. But we get to choose who we actively seek to learn from.

BONUS RULE #3 — EVERYONE HAS SOME KIND OF ADVICE TO OFFER

Sometimes advice from a beginner is more valuable than advice from a master. Sometimes the advice of someone closer to our current position in our journey provides more benefits than the advice of someone much farther along.

These are the essential foundations of a community. Teaching, learning and interacting with others on the same path.

In 12 step programs, helping the newcomer is considered one of the most important things a person can do to maintain their recovery.

“I’ve only been sober for 1 month!” a member might protest. “I can barely help myself, how can I help the newcomer?!”

But the newcomer is much more likely to relate to the struggles of someone with 30 days of sobriety than they are to someone with 30 years of sobriety.

The same concept applies to everything. To the beginning musician, the advice of someone with intermediate skill may be more useful than a master because they still have a more vivid understanding of being a beginner than the virtuoso teacher.

We all have knowledge we need to share and information we need to seek. We just need to know when and how to share it, and when and from who to receive it.