Year of the Dragon

PREFACE

Before I was taught to be a doctor or lawyer, I once dreamed of being a waiter. Serving food and cleaning tables. To me at the time, it seemed like a really good thing to do. I thought that preparing and serving food with the intention of replenishing people's bodies and souls with spices and good will was to be reserved for the happiest of people.

But today we here have grown to value specific extremes. And we have succeeded in pursuing those extremes with a ton of efficiency.
But to be any one thing, is to not be everything else.

Some people have seen the dangers of a power hungry corporation and react to it by being the opposite. But those people are still tied to the very thing they despise. You doing something because of something else still makes your actions derived from the thing you are reacting towards...

Do something because you want to, because you love to... if it goes along with this or doesn't go along with that... so be it. Haters gonna hate right?

For in farming, we have valued banging out the most crop in a short amount of time. Out of all thousands of variety of apples, super markets only sell a handful. Handfuls that share a common weakness, but are poured with pesticides to counteract the self balancing way of nature, just to have an apple that taste like the one before it.

Farmers call this monoculture. This is what we do to many aspects of our life. It is easy to label something as evil and something else as good. To be have the largest bank account, to be the funny guy at a party, to be in control. But having tons of money is just having tons of money, the funny guy who tries so hard is not funny at all, and the control freak has no control of their life whatsoever... Anything can be taken to an extreme.

And the harder you try to preserve the extremes, the more cancerous you become. Diverting resources to maintain a state of affairs in what is a dynamic, changing, cross pollinating universe. Until you start to kill the very system that you depend on.

All this holding on and clinging is derived from a fear within. As I learn to let go and swim WITH the waves, I find the more and more that I actually delight in it.

Eat a sour apple, it makes you have a funny face.
Don't be afraid to be an asshole, that's kind of funny too.
Paint because you have something to share.

And don't forget to be a doctor, because you love it.
Or to be a lawyer because money can be fun.

That's how I see it right now.


YEAR OF THE DRAGON

I feel like dancing with the old, to repaint something new
I feel a reconfiguration of the globe is in due
I feel the sun wants it too

I don't know where it will lead
But I know maximum surprise is what I need

Call it want you want
Write it in any font

It's already been going, it's always been here
All we need to learn is what it means to steer

A violent rage of kisses is on the way
And no matter what we do to delay
This dragon can't be slayed