I was on my way out of public service, nearly impossible to fire, and angrier and more defiant than ever. I pondered what progress I could actually achieve given my circumstances. What positive changes could happen before I was forced to abandon the quest part of my job? I decided to create artwork for the patient newspaper under the pseudonym, ‘M’. I believed it was my chance to reach any and all real thinkers.
It’s sobering to try to make any sense out of nonsense. I decided good sense would rule. I believed most people who took the time to read would get it. Too many had learned in the hardest ways that everything is normal until it’s not. If normal and abnormal are opposites of the same basic substance with black and white extremes, what shades of gray does normal end and abnormal begin? How do we know when we’re not normal or on our way to not normal?
Is it possible to be sane in an insane world? I proceed slowly toward a best possible outcome, despite persistent challenges, gigantic obstacles, and dogged resistance to change. Making artwork is my process of balancing my sanity with all insanity. I’ve modified writing and artwork from Summer of 2015 to help reflect current events in the here and now. There’s no time and place like the present to observe the past, see the present, and preview the future. My ideals and ideas are guided by my conscience, logic, practical thinking, undying faith, and open channels to good sense. Here is my contribution to the patient newspaper.
There’s way too much craziness around here. Everyone is angry, frustrated, and depressed most of the time. There are two types of captives here, full-time and part-time. Full-time are patients and are required by law to be here. Part-time are staff who are underpaid to work within a very limiting and confining structure. At the end of the day, they go home. An incredible amount of time and energy is spent silently suffering under bleak florescent lighting, bland colors, bad air flow, and rigid bureaucratic leadership. Who says misery doesn’t love company?
Complaining and blaming our problems and circumstances on the system and each other hasn’t worked, isn’t working, and isn’t going to work. How much of our craziness is choice? How much is out of our control? Using logic and psychology are important for preparing and maintaining our good health, clear thinking, real feelings, and free spirits.
Many of us are potentially generous and productive people. There’s lots of capability and talent among us. We could all be leading happier and more productive lives. Is it possible to re-stage, rewrite, and redirect your script while re-imagining your roles, directors, actors, and audiences for a different outcome? Can you envision being your own author and guide for your story?
What can we do? We can stop complaining. We can acknowledge that we’re here and now. We can accept (for the time being) what we’re unable or don’t want to change. We can make positive decisions and commitments to improving the quality of our daily experience. We can encourage one another to grow. We can cultivate our unique talents and abilities. We can do extra. We’re a team of uniquely diverse players. Our powerful opponents are bureaucracy, bad habits, time, and greed. Powerful adversaries prevent us from being real with ourselves and each other. We can all be winners by degree. It’s up to each and every.
The purpose of this creation is to transmute inhumanity into humanity based on good sense. It’s about becoming more aware of ourselves and what’s around us. We can change our mindsets and become healthier. We can all live more meaningful lives on a healthier planet and world. All lives and that planet are very much at risk at the moment.
GREENING OF THE PSYCHE
Psychic Pollution is Mother of All Pollution. Psychic Pollution occurs when negative ideologies, philosophies, and beliefs are planted, sprout, proliferate, flourish, and blossom into horrible social paradigms. Psychic Pollution is the result of creating, cultivating, and collecting, but not properly disposing of Psychic Garbage. Fear, ignorance, and apathy are contagious diseases that pollute our bodies, psyches, souls, and world. Our bad habits and horrible behaviors interfere with our good health and happiness and the good health and wellness of our world.
Too much hate is a path to more fear, terror, and misery for all. We must let go of fear, acknowledge our differences, face ourselves, exorcise our demons, and build bridges of humility, compassion, wisdom, and grace instead of walls of fear, anger, rage, and hatred.
The human race has become a race against bad shit happening. One example of how fear, ignorance, and apathy operate is when a person who has been elected to have the most power to change the world tells the world he is unable to sign an international climate treaty to sustain the world. He offers vengeance as a solution to violence without proposing a helpful and constructive vision which leaves people feeling hopeful about their future. Choosing Money over Morality and Religion over Spirituality has catapulted the human psyche into darkness. The Devil is hard at work attracting and feeding falsehoods to Fundamentalists and Extremists who desperately cling to Religion and Money while the rest of us lose Faith in Equity, Equality, Ethics, Virtue, and Grace.
“Wake up and smell the Psychic Garbage”
Most of us fear Cancer and Climate Change. Meanwhile, our air, lungs, water, blood, bodies, cities, towns, soils, souls, planet, and inner and outer worlds are in deadly peril. Even without constant human warfare, we consume massive amounts of highly toxic chemicals every day in our wars with insects, rodents, weeds, dirt, stains, odors, germs, bacteria, pathogens, and many other potential invisible enemies. The chemicals that heat and cool us, produce and power our transportation, process, color, flavor, and preserve our foods, provide us with even more useful and useless stuff, and enable us to communicate on a grand scale are poisoning us. How bright white, squeaky clean, and bacteria free must we be?
Fossil fuels are finite. Roads are overcrowded. As we analyze, rationalize, and compartmentalize our worst behaviors, our climate worsens. We eat, drink, breathe, wash, brush, and apply Cancer-causing chemicals to skin, digestive, circulatory, and respiratory systems, spirits, choices, actions, planet, and world. Where’s good sense?
Research has proven that thoughts and feelings cause chemical changes in our bodies and physical changes in our world around us. Doctors and psychologists link causes and cures of physical ailments with mental states. Our health and the health of our world is a direct result of the thoughts and feelings we embody, embrace, encourage, and enhance.
Private and public sources of energy, food, housing, health care, transportation, communications, raw materials, manufacturing, and religion must be responsible for maintaining and upgrading both our physical and social infrastructures for our people, planet, and world. Transmuting inhumanity’s selfish intentions through merging all with ALL is crucial to healing our world.
Screening ourselves from our sun has become a way of life. Apparel, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries create new chemicals to protect us from the consequences of past, present, and future chemicals. Human healthcare industries boom as a human race continues to copulate, contract fresh viruses, develop cancers, discover new immune deficiencies, and encounter myriad environmental, food, and health challenges. Demand for doctors, nurses, hospitals, researchers, and health care professionals is skyrocketing. Mental health workers are crucial. Religious institutions are enjoying a revival as so many lost souls seek answers. Environmental opportunities are popping up everywhere. Greenwashing is popular. It’s on its way to its destiny and final resting place ~ KARMA.
Another growth industry is funerals. I’ve got an idea that can save humanity lots of time, space, and money. Here it is for free. Stack people vertically in tubes instead of burying them horizontally in plots. Holes can be drilled the length of a person or depth of an entire family, ready for the next family member at the next funeral. Ashes take up even less space… I plan to be with my favorite mycelium.
Too much war, many natural disasters, and out of control humans, transform funeral homes, casket making, incinerators, and graveyard real estate into prudent investments. When euthanasia laws change, I’ll be marketing my no mess “Dr. Death Do It Yourself Kit”. DIY with Dignity & Grace.
Physical pollution enables Clean Air and Water to be monetized and become commodities. Soon, we’ll all need air and water purifiers. Perhaps oxygen will be marketed over the counter like bottled water. There will be Oxygen Aroma Bars where people can purchase a “vintage breath of fresh air” from the peaks of Everest, rain forests of Borneo, or other exotic locations. Designer oxygen masks and lemon scented oxygen will become fashionable.
By examining our plant world, we can observe and understand the cycles of our human world. To cultivate a healthy harvest, it’s important to select quality concepts for planting. We must clear away destructive and unproductive thoughts by planting positive ideas and visions in our collective minds and psyches. Right attitudes and positive circumstances will enable new hope to sprout. A healthy society must have healthy values and a natural supportive environment to encourage strong root growth. We must conserve our soil and nourish our fragile seedlings wherever, whenever, however, and in whatever ways we can to preserve our harvest.
We must invest in our future by nurturing all relationships and conditions that fortify our world. Our gardens will bud and blossom as we achieve unity within ourselves and each other. We can enrich our yield by sharing our processes from seed planting through final harvest. Many varieties of herbs, vegetables, and fruits can thrive together in a garden. Many kinds of people can thrive in our world. Thinking of humanity as a flourishing garden ensures a bountiful crop of happiness, prosperity, peace of mind, and purity for ALL SOULS and the SOUL of ALL!
Stay tuned as my writing and artwork darken and my hopeful raves become hopeless rants.
Next we built a bunny bench out of recycled plywood, two small branches for ears, three large branches for structure, and reconstituted shrink wrap for seating. The ears didn’t last, so we performed plastic surgery and made matching floppy ears from shrink wrap.
I was on my daily bike ride and stopped to check out a property for sale. There were (14) 4’ X 6’ abandoned sliding glass doors leaning against a barn. I called the broker and offered the owner $100 for all of them. He said yes. I borrowed a friend’s truck to transport them to my future clutter control site. Our neighbor across the road had $1500 worth of left over corrugated metal roofing materials he said I could have for free. Another friend was taking down a large cedar balcony and told me I could salvage anything I wanted. I scavenged enough materials from that balcony to build a 12’ X 24’ platform. The remaining building materials and hardware I purchased at Home Depot.
