For The Love Of Pop-Up Ads

I just spent the last 2.5 hours, dizzyingly navigating my way around an internet article, manically clicking off random, auto-start, pop-up commercials and arrows and boxes that when I clicked them, whisked me to over to some other universe of irritation, in a powerless attempt at reading a 

3 minute article on the wonders of composting toilets.

Remember back when YouTube and the internet were the places you sought refuge in from the onslaught of annoying as fuck commercials that yelled at you to buy something you didn’t need, at 15 minute intervals?

Only every 15 minutes, you say? 

A mere 4x an hour?

Compared to what's going on now in 2017, that seems like some tranquil, zen like dwelling I’d suddenly rather be time-machined back to.

Honestly, the pop-up ads on YouTube, the commercials that come on midway into a heartfelt video, the advertising noise sprinkled throughout every single article and news page opened, aren't even a little funny anymore. 

Imagine being deeply immersed in a scary book or movie, and intermittently, a squad of differently clothed clowns and axe murderers alarmingly jump out of the closet to sell you different heart attack remedies.

It’s like, I'm just trying to walk to the kitchen, to get a simple glass of water, and the hallway I need to walk through is lined with 300 mentally unstable, needy people, nervously rifling car insurance leaflets at me at the speed of an industrial paper-sorter, as they’re slashing my face with obsolete business cards, gluing useless gadgets to my forehead, dipping posters in throw-up and fire ants, and then crumpling them up and jamming them down my esophagus.

Just trying to get a glass of water here. 

I’m considering hiring a few Samoan bodyguards so in the future, I can safely open that video you sent me. 

Maybe my memory is skewed, but back when I was in advertising, I feel like commericals attempted to have a modicum of class. They were carefully analyzed, tediously created, beautifully shot, and placed according to a very specific demographic.

Today, they are more like like writhing, screaming, clots of fast-moving information, that now have the capability of being fire-launched up your ass the minute you sit on the toilet.

Over the years, in an effort to preserve their own species, it seems that ads started to develop a mind of their own, their own ways to intuit that we’re leaving them. Like some bad ex, they somehow know when we’re trying to avoid contact with them, so they show up at other places you might happen to be. Like they've explicated some radical, genetic mutation to battle their impending demise. Attempting to stick to your retina from every possible angle of your life’s periphery like some industrial grade, double-stick Velcro, would stick to a colony of unsheared, dry sheep.

Honestly, I can’t imagine that any of these irritating pop-up ads are even relatively effective because all they ever make anyone wanna buy is mace (for the jerks who keep jumping out of the closets and hallways), a 1-way ticket to a Himalayan mountain top, and a crate of soft-covered books that don't yell at me while I'm reading them. So if that’s what you’re selling, stick to that. 

You’ll make a killing.

Old School. Like Get With The Times, School.

It's so wonderful to not have to raise your hand to talk. 

And so I'll do just that.

Every Sunday night, I’m reminded of how downtrodden and miserable so many kids are at the prospect of going back to school the following Monday. Like they're somehow going back to a child labor camp to mechanically stamp lifeless, paper eyes onto carnival dolls for 8 hours straight. 

If schools were a place of true exploration, a place where they learned to generate ideas, were allowed to speak freely and openly about world issues, and rewarded for questioning the garden-variety vanilla topics, kids would more than likely find school as a place they were watered, and brought back to life.

What we seem to have now, is an itchy blanket of similar-brained higher-ups, not teaching you as much as -- Training You-- to be rated based on your ability to regurgitate standardized information. Information that exists already. What they're ultimately generating, are students who can produce guaranteed, correct answers to questions that were already once asked. 

What we don’t have enough of, are the encouragements of creative thought, mental expeditions, the bravery to ask unique questions, an incentivizing teaching community whose priorities are about fostering an outpouring of highly individualized young adults, who stoically  and fearlessly discuss the 'what ifs', and who have the determination to answer questions in unique ways, developing a thicker skin around being 'wrong' ...because their answers were original, and not cookie cutter, and boldly delve into a new way of what truly works for them, versus staying with an old academic model with antiquated dogmatic teachings. 

No matter what the school, be it privatized or public, there seems to be a serious deficit in the insistence of creative thought, and mandates of fresh approaches and solutions, that would undeniably spark and awaken a sense of wonder, originality and defined purpose in young, developing minds. 

My gut tells me if the latter were the case, and rigid thinking became the thing that was frowned upon, and playful mental exploration, mindfulness, open-ended thinking, and free-associative thoughts were the factors that were rewarded, most kids would be psyched to go back to school.

My point of view isn’t about trying to eliminate the requisite of an education. Quite the opposite. Learning is SO important. 

I myself hope to always be a student in all areas of life, a white belt in all I pursue, learning and being challenged every minute that I’m alive. And I wish the same for my kids, and yours. 

Learning in any area of life, is an endless process and includes far more than text books. 
It includes not just factual information, but a deeper look into our own minds, a newer level of self-discovery and awareness. It requires playing, no matter what your age, exposure to a multitude of lifestyles, facing adversities, asking questions, failing, asking more questions, failing again, asking questions about those questions, asking questions about those question's questions, challenging ‘the obvious', tirelessly researching what you're told, and consistently embracing a buttload of critical thinking and compassion. Cannot forget to be human in all of this searching.

All this needs to happen, and happen more. 

At one time, this learning building called 'school', used to be the only place available for anyone to learn. 

Schools as we know them were first created in 1837. 

Schools were actually created before the first postage stamp was even invented. Yet here we are today, 2017, still sitting in horribly lit classrooms, on coccyx-bone-unfriendly desk chairs, carting around 40lb backpacks like some old Grecian mule, saddled with hours and hours of homework about some book that was written 50 years ago that no one should give a shit about anymore, and thumbing through yellowing pages of tome-sized textbooks that harbor decades of archived student's boogers. 

The approach feels a bit mothball'y.

We currently have more information available to us on a 4"x 2" device in our back pockets, 24 hours a day, than probably most every school and worldwide university combined. And with every passing year, this is exponentially more true.

We can learn anywhere, at any time, about any thing, or anyone. We can laugh while we're learning, and never even get out of bed. And while I'm not recommending living in your sheets, I'm also not recommending living with your SAT tutor.

If you dread getting out of bed every morning to go to your job, then you're at the wrong job. 
If you dread getting out of bed every morning because of school, then you're not being taught the right way.

Yet somehow, parents think that kids don't know about this phone invention. This endless stream of information unifying us with the rest of the world. That the breadth of a Smartphone's abilities somehow skirted their children's awareness. 

That even though kids too, have access to this truly godlike, infinite universe of information via 'their stupid phone', 24 hours a day...in spite of knowing that, parents still feel their kids should be equally excited about sitting in a school learning about Napoleon, Trigonometry, and The Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. 

That regardless of kid's current ability to learn and peruse whatever it is that interests them, they should still be jumping high in the air with unadulterated excitement, repeatedly kicking their glittery heels together, at the crack of 6 am, like some fairy-dusted leprechaun, as they load their drained, uninspired selves onto a squeaky, yellow prison bus, at the anticipation of being shipped back to the grey, dispirited, fluorescent lit corridors of an institution that grades them and judges them strictly on memory retention, and their ability to return a library book on time. 

A flower cannot blossom with a rubber band tied around it's bud.

These dinosaur schools with their dinosaur curriculums need to be flushed down their dinosaur toilets, along with their dinosaur standardized ACT, SAT, and other groupthink testing methodologies, and while they're at it, also flush their frightening, outmoded notions of cafeteria 'nutrition', which here in America, at best is commercial grade inmate slop. 

The only vibrant color you'll ever see on a cafeteria plate in America will be from the blue dyes in the Slurpees that look like something made by Windex. 

If we want smart, sharp thinkers, we need foods that nourish brains, and mend and generate healthy cells. We need fresh green foods, organic fruits and vegetables, not more breads and crackers and pretzels and pizzas and colorless prefabricated chunks of wan, dead food. I'd personally rather eat the toenail clippings of a sewer inspector.

Breakfast offerings at American learning establishments usually begin with a choice of fried flour balls, (also known as 'Cake In The Morning'), made with a daunting list of petro chemicals and preservatives and dyes, a pot of waxy chocolate chips, and as an added health bonus, it's the size of my head. Don't get me started on the rest of the 'foods' that come off that militarized, submarine grey, Sysco truck. Otherwise we will slip into a greasy ditch of harsh criticisms that I'll never make my way out of.

But while I'm on the subject of Sysco, the proud nutritionless sponsor of most schools, I need to finish.

I've noticed they've recently, (and quite deceptively) re-sided their dingy 18 wheelers, that used to look like an office furniture delivery truck, into trucks with glossy posters that are exploding with an array of colorful fruits and vegetables, attempting to convince parents that their loving children are now eating like they've landed in some sublime, Utopian Paradise of Goodness run by Ghandi, vs. the reality, which is hoards of despondent, grade-worried, sugar-saturated kids sitting slumped over a cafeteria bench, stuffing the same nutritionally debilitated chow into their faces as Charles Manson currently does in California State Prison.

It's time we collectively rethink all this zombie, auto-pilot paper-shuffling, grade-driven, moldy, school life monotony.

We need a new, fresh, healthy school model for the new age of learning. Something that will get everyone excited again, excited to participate in, teachers included, and get these kids off these effing depression and focus pharmaceuticals, which are sadly given as a result of thinking that there's something wrong with your kid because he/she is bored to smithereens. (whatever those little things are). 

In reality their lack of interest is because they're spending their days and nights, their entire childhood, consumed in a confining template of unoriginality, misaligned with their true spirit, their inner colors slowly erased over the years, and their souls molded into a smoldering vat of conformity.

There's one thing my long and strangely varied life has taught me, and lo and behold, it wasn’t learned in school. 

It's that there’s an enormous difference between being educated, and being truly intelligent. 

I know a lot of people who are absolutely brilliant, who weren't conventionally schooled. Conversely, I also know equal amounts of people who -were- conventionally schooled, even Ivy Leagued, who are dim, small-minded, uncurious, set in their way of thinking, and are about as interesting to talk with as talking to a bowl of wet tube socks.

Before good grades, or killer SAT scores, I hope far beyond anything else, that all kids, both big and small, carry with them at all times, a profound, intellectual curiosity and desire to expose and involve themselves in a plurality of subjects. To me, this is learning. 

Doing well on your SAT’s? Well, I'm probably one of the few parents who would feel a quiet shred of disappointment that my kids toiled and clawed their dermis off to remember stuff that has basically zero purpose in this diverse, ever-changing projection called 'real life'.

Last Thursday was the first day back for everyone's kids after summer break. 
Pulling up to the school that morning, looking around at the droves of 'Senior Girls' all dressed the same, all flipping pink boas over their shoulders, all wearing pink skirts, pink socks, and pink shirts, and all with 'SENIOR GIRLZZZZZZZ!!!” unintelligibly scribbled all over their cars with crayons and shaving cream, along with all the other sad-school-attendees, I too couldn't help but feel a little depressed. 

So that's it? That's the culmination of a daunting 12 years of schooling, at one of the supposed ‘BEST SCHOOLS IN THE EAST!’?  
The big finale to show everyone how much you've learned and grown, how far you’ve come, is tritely expressed by acting the same, dressing the same, and expressing yourselves the same exact way as all the other senior girl predecessors, while being collectively and predictably boring and unoriginal.

But hey, ya did good on the SAT’s.

Yay school. Your boring adult-making factory is working. 

Congratulations. 

You get an A.

What On Earth Have We Done

We're dying. While you're crossfitting and latte'ing, there are many a 25 acre glacier sliding into the ocean.

Like the Who's in Whoville, our little voices crying for help seem to fall upon deaf ears. 

What will it take. And how did we get here.

I recently read a quote that said 'The food you're eating is either making you healthier, or it's not'. 

That simple. That true. I'll extend that thought and say, our choices make the world healthier, or they don't. Our choices reach far beyond our one person. 

Far beyond.

The current state of the world, the corruption, pollution, the deforestation, the consumerism, the gluttony, the toxins in our food, the stripping of our oceans, the oblivion of the human race...it's crushing my soul, and everything that lives here. 

I'm not sure I care if you think that's dramatic. It IS dramatic. 100% dramatic.

It's dramatic because there's major drama in the world. Major.

The planet is dying, almost dead, and it's happening so rapidly, so dramatically.

If you don't believe me, open your eyes and look around. Children are born with cancer, young adults suddenly developing brain tumors, and mental disorders are now the new common cold.
Grown ups are living on pharmaceuticals, and drunk every night because there's a pervasive emptiness we're all seemingly part of, and there's barely any fish left in the ocean. Look it up.
Yet every day, people are still posting pictures of their 90 piece sushi dinners and their asses.

Wtf is going on here with our disconnect and involvement in what really matters.

It's 2017, and the general population still has zero idea about how grave the consequences of our collective actions actually are. 

They think it's a vast exaggeration. It's just some radical hippie idea. Not even close to a reality. 

They think the severity of our lives lies strictly within the outcome of a presidential election.

The world has far more than just 2 peanut heads you need to worry about, believe me.

Hundreds of millions of them, to be more specific.

If everyone really knew the dire situation we're in right now, I'd have to believe they'd reconsider so much about their lifestyles, their diets, jobs, and focus on enlightening their kids, who are the future of this planet. There'd be an overall re-prioritization.

Pretty much everything needs to be reconsidered, reevaluated, and revisited to help mitigate the crisis at hand. We need to stop watching television and behaving like we're nothing more than consumers...those who consume, consume, consume....hence, 'Consumers'. Ewww.
What a gross title we've accepted. Our excessive laundry lists of wants has put our ecosystem in a perpetual wheelchair. But somehow as long as people can still watch the next episode of Dexter, they think everything's okay. 

I drive around this little, rich bubble of a town I live in (but didnt know this when i moved up here. I saw trees and thought...'ooo everyone must be so down to earth!' ), and see dozens and dozens and dozens of people feeling the need to knock down smaller, efficient houses, and put up giant, wasteful (and fucking cookie-cutter ugly), soulless McMansions with 3 or 4 car garages. And on top of it, all the trees on the property are mowed down. :( 

The trees are the lungs of this  planet. Yet we so indiscriminately disregard their importance, and see them as 'in the way', and eliminate them without ever replacing them. Every year, we look for the biggest, healthiest evergreen we can find, one that's withstood over a hundred years of storms and geological adversity, and chainsaw it down, drag it into a filthy NYC, and prop it back up in Rockefeller Center, in the name of attracting people who would tell you that they're skating there, celebrating their love for nature, when really they are nothing more than pawns in the game of commerce as they dance and glide under the corpse of a dead tree bearing the illusion of life and all that's important.

When the earth is broken, so are we. Look around at the profound health crises in this world, and you'll understand that concept. When you dump poison in a lake, the fish and otters die. Earth is just a larger 'lake', and all it's inhabitants are too choking and decaying from it's growing toxicity and lack of giving a minor fuck.

I too, of course, am just as guilty as living excessively. No denying that. I don't live off the land, I live in Westport CT. I don't live in a wigwam, I live in a 3000 square foot house. I don't wear banana leaves for shoes, I often leave lights on when I shouldn't, and have an ancient oil burning heating system that's super inefficient and wasteful (I should have a wood burning stove or solar panels for sure). And quite honestly, I despise myself for this. Cannot imagine the level of personal degradation my body has accrued over the decades, and the level of ecological damage this planet has shit out just because of my one stupid body breathing and occupying space here. So I'm panicked when I multiply that disgust by 7 plus billion people. But mostly by how excessive, sensationalistic, and unnecessarily indulgent Americans are. Shameful, fat, unhealthy, self-centered and destructive.

We are truly an experiment gone awry.

So in a desperate and feeble attempt to make amends with the planet, and my own guilt, about a year or so ago, after learning the amount of rainforest destruction and carbon emissions that animal agriculture was singlehandedly responsible for, I decided to take on a vegan, plant-based lifestyle.

( Not to annoy the shit out of you, believe it or not. And if it does, sorry, but that's on you. I too love cheese, but fuck my tongue's opinion). Simply put, the victim angle of exclusively blaming corporations, and the powers that be, was no longer working for me.  

My choices, my purchases and my daily habits are what either keep those businesses IN business, or out of business ('my', meaning all of us...) Eating poison, buying poison, having what I thought was 'a great career' (...I guess because I could buy a bigger, cooler house, and feel worthy?... ), and never really knowing or even thinking about what the fuck was going on behind closed doors, never questioning the fallout of whom and what I was actually promoting and supporting, if I traced it back to its roots, or followed it up to it's summit.

Sadly, we're at the crossroads of what feels like an almost irreversible problem. That is, when you think of the problem in terms of needing to physically move billions of people, or hundreds of millions of people in the same direction. Presumably, why global change feels insurmountable to most, and most people shrug just their shoulders and say, 'Eh...It is what it is. ' And odd, because people definitively believe their one presidential vote has power. They understand the concept of voting when it comes to a person, but ignorantly believe it's a worthless drop in the bucket practice when it comes to everything else they choose, or don't choose.

However in actuality, a huge positive global change is relatively simple. 

It's not easy, but it's simple.

It's a matter of every 1, individual person, SIMPLY agreeing upon a few very basic, SIMPLE universal goals. Wanting to be awake and aware, (that alone has a severely positive cascading effect), wanting true health, happiness and freedom for all things, and a beautiful, thriving, healthier home, called planet Earth. 

It's imbibed in every one choice we make.

~dp

Potus Schmotus

In the movie 'The Titanic', there was a scene that always stuck out in my mind.

For years, I've replayed it in my head, over and over again.

I've always loved it because it reminded me of the powerful beauty in remaining calm when you're staring directly into the eye of fear.

Up close and personal with adversity, looking it straight in the face with a sense unperturbed tranquility. 

It was the scene near the end, where everyone was running for their lives...the ship was now definitively sinking. 

Everyone knew they were probably dying momentarily. Yet the violin quartet kept playing beautiful music, in spite of it.

It was a powerfully beautiful moment because it's stoic. It's accepting your situation with grace, despite a guaranteed unfavorable outcome. Somewhat metaphoric of where we may currently be.

Or maybe it isn't. Who knows.

Maybe Trump being elected, is a blessing. A blessing because we suddenly feel compelled to personally make a difference somehow. 

A blessing because we'll take matters into our own hands to make sure they get done, and done correctly.

A blessing because we'll finally realize that no one person can save any of us, and it's up to each person exclusively, to do what they can do, to weather any unpredictable storm, and still play a beautiful song. 

We'll realize that our personal happiness, and/or deficits, never are, nor ever were contingent upon who is elected. 

Never in the history of Presidencies. 

We need to dial down the political noise, the SuperBowl'esque distractions, the drama and feelings of hopelessness, and replace it with something far more deeply substantive. 

That's a must.

However minuscule or grand, the world needs to be made into a better habitat. Not just for the people, for all living things, for we are all reliant on a healthy planet a thriving ecosystem to be a happy, healthy person.

Not just to...'Make America Great' -- but to make ourselves great, again-- and the rest will take care of itself. 

Not by creating more jobs, not by buying or making more shit we don't need on the shelves of Bed Bath and Beyond, but by doing a little more than we'd normally do for someone else in our everyday lives. By doing something as simple as making it a point to smile at a stranger, packing someone else's groceries for them, helping someone for nothing in return, just because everyone's struggling in some way, and because  it feels damn good to help. 

Maybe Trump being President, is a blessing. Maybe. Or maybe it's an excuse to headbutt a nail gun. Either way, it'll hopefully prompt some type of personal re-evaluation, possibly a mini, personal revolution, provide a more honest level of introspection, a far deeper look into ourselves, our psyches, our list of priorities, and see how we can help heal this world, that we wouldn't have discovered otherwise, had a less controversial person become President 

Maybe it'll create a rebirth a type of back into our truer selves, the selves who don't just want more, for the sake of having more, but desire to be more, to give more, and take less. Maybe it's the two-handed collar shake that we all somehow needed.

Some might call that a revolution in the making. But whatever it is, decide on the outcome of events with having the conviction be some type of positive personal change, because you're the one holding the outcome of your life in your hands. 

You were all along.

🎶🎶🎶 💚 🌏 🎶🎶🎶

Sorry For Waking You

We're dying. 

While you're crossfitting and latte'ing, there's many a 25 acre glacier sliding into the ocean.

Like the Who's in Whoville, our little voices crying for help seem to fall upon deaf ears. 

What will it take. And how did we get here.

I recently read a quote that said 'The food you're eating is either making you healthier, or it's not'. 

While it's super black and white, it's also super true.
I'll extend that thought and say, the choices we make for ourselves, go far beyond our ourselves. Far beyond. And why they're so important to make judiciously.

The current state of the world, the corruption, pollution, the deforestation, the floods, the fires, the dramatic climate change, insane consumerism, the gluttony, the toxins in our food, the stripping of our oceans, the oblivion of the majority of the human race...it's crushing my soul, and unfortunately everything that lives here too. 

I'm not sure I care if you think that's dramatic. It IS dramatic. 100% dramatic. Not because I decided to be dramatic.

It's dramatic because there's major drama in the world. Major.

The planet is dying, and it's rapidly happening.

If you don't believe me, open your eyes and look around. Children are born with cancer, young adults are suddenly developing brain tumors, and mental disorders are now the new common cold. Grown ups are living on bags of pharmaceuticals, and drunk every night because there's a pervasive emptiness we're all seemingly part of. There's barely any fish left in the ocean, (I'll post links and references to global statistics if you think I'm drunk.) Yet every day, people are still posting pictures of their 90 piece sushi dinners. 

Wtf is going on here with our disconnect.

It's 2016, and the general population still has zero idea about how grave the consequences of our collective actions actually are. 

They think it's a vast exaggeration. It's just an idea. Not a reality. They think the severity of our lives lie strictly within the outcome of a presidential election, 'Trump or Hillary'. The world has far more than just 2 ill-equipped casualties of common sense you need to worry about. Hundreds of millions, to be more specific.

If everyone really knew the dire situation we are in right now, I'd have to believe they'd reconsider so much about their lifestyles; their diets, jobs, enlightening their kids, priorities. Pretty much everything, to help mitigate the crisis at hand. But as long as people can still watch the next episode of Dexter, they somehow think everything's okay. 

I drive around my town and see people knocking down smaller, efficient houses, and putting up wasteful (ugly), soulless McMansions with 3 or 4 car garages, and all the trees are mowed down. :(

I too, of course, am just as guilty as living excessively. No denying that. I don't live off the land, I don't live in a wigwam, I don't wear banana leaves for shoes, I always leave lights on when I shouldn't, and have an ancient oil burning heating system that's super inefficient and I'm sure wasteful. And quite honestly, I hate myself for this. Cannot imagine the level of personal degradation my body has accrued over the decades, and the level of ecological damage this planet has shit out just because of my one stupid body breathing and occupying space here.

So in a desperate and feeble attempt to make amends with the planet, and my own guilt, about a year or so ago, after learning the amount of rainforest destruction and carbon emissions that animal agriculture was singlehandedly responsible for, I decided to take on a vegan, plant-based lifestyle.

( Not to annoy the shit out of you, believe it or not. And if it does, sorry, but that's on you. I too love cheese, but fuck my tongue's opinion).
Simply put, the victim angle of exclusively blaming corporations, was no longer working for me.  

My choices, my purchases and my daily habits are what either keeps those businesses IN business, or out of business (my, meaning all of us...) Eating poison, buying poison, having what I thought was 'a great career' (...because I could buy a bigger, cooler house, and feel worthy?... I'm sure), and never really knowing or even thinking about what the fuck was going on behind closed doors, never questioning the fallout of whom and what I was actually promoting, if I traced it back to its roots, or followed it up to it's summit.

Sadly, we're at the crossroads of what feels like an almost irreversible problem. That is, when you think of the problem in terms of needing to physically move billions of people, or hundreds of millions of people in the same direction. Presumably, why global change feels insurmountable to most, and most people shrug just their shoulders and say, 'Eh...It is what it is. ' And odd, because people definitively believe their ONE presidential vote has power. They understand the concept of voting when it comes to a person, but ignorantly believe it's a worthless drop in the bucket practice when it comes to picking and choosing everything else.

However in actuality, a huge positive global change is relatively simple. 

It's not easy, but it's simple.

It's a matter of every 1, individual person, SIMPLY agreeing upon a few very basic, simple universal goals. 

Wanting to be awake and aware, (that alone has a severely positive cascading effect), wanting true health, happiness and freedom for all things, and a beautiful, thriving, healthier home, called planet Earth. It's imbibed in every one choice we make.