Ep. 1 & 2 Thoughts and Reflections

Podcasting is an interesting process. Putting out un-edited (as in not changing the words) dialogue, along with exposing my inner thought process to the world at large is a stepping stone. In that regard, it is a stepping stone to more inherent self-honesty. In previous years, before gaining a stronger sense of self by doing esteemable things, I had constant inner chatter of conversations I had, conversations I fantasized about having, and conversations where I wished I had said something different. One common theme that came out of those thought patterns was the phrase “I TOLD THEM TOO MUCH.”  That kind of thinking still creeps in and is a fear-based narrative that I tell myself on occasion. The alcoholic, according to the Big Book of AA, is shot to the core with fear. As I identify as a recovered alcoholic, I know this in my guts to be the truth. I do not think the rest of humankind is immune to this sort of fear-based programming. It seems to be a default function of our societal mental consciousness. To go into the rabbit hole of that concept would derail me from my purpose in writing this document. Perhaps the topic can be explored in further conversation and writing. The fear-driven narrative that sometimes permeates my thoughts is not one of faith. It is one of self-service and it is to the detriment of my purpose here on this Earth. 

Interestingly enough, the thought described above did not come up during the first recording of the Up Your Nose With A Rubber Hose podcast. It did rear its head after recording the second episode. Unfortunately, I did not sit down to record my thoughts on the recording of the first episode with D from Down Culture, thus I will have to include them here. 

After recording with D, I was elated. The podcast itself went exactly how I had envisioned. I sat down with D with one subject I was planning to ask him about, and everything flowed naturally to that point and beyond. Big ups to D for being so open about his struggles with substance use and addiction. I mention on the podcast that D’s honesty on twitter is one of the reason’s I fully love following him. When D and I go into our discussion on consciousness, I had not anticipated talking about that. In my writings about that experience and the associated experiences I have had, and others have had in a similar fashion, I had not discussed the concept of consciousness. However, it seems like a natural segue into furthering the discussion. The further learning of the limitless bounds of our own consciousness, spirituality, and dreams is one of the most important pursuits of my lifetime and it was extremely fulfilling to discuss them on the first podcast. In addition, hearing some of the “takeaways” from folks, one of the bigger ones that seemed to speak to people was the discussion D and I had regarding “spreading the love,” mindset or uplifting others’ positive potential. I have had numerous individuals tell me that segment spoke to them. One cat said being “lighter” as in “brighter” is better than being serious in regard to treating others. I love hearing the different takes on the discussion. 

When reviewing the podcast, I came across sections where I wish I had said some additional information or asked another question. For example, in the first episode, when I mention the book by Florence Scovel Shinn and the breakdown of consciousness in her words, I leave out the specification that she considers the “unconscious” to be a force like electricity. Fortunately, D went into the book by Annika Harris who, according to D, elucidates consciousness as a force or a possible force akin to something like gravity. In my defense, for what it’s worth, I do mention the “force” of consciousness in the second podcast with DJ. The idea that came to mind when thinking about the missing pieces of a conversation was “ghost notes,” which I will expand on shortly. 

After recording with DJ, before I reviewed the episode, I had the fear-narrative ignite in my mind. I felt like I took the podcast in a direction that was not in alignment of uplifting my frens. I felt like I threw too much shade and used language that could be taken to imply a bias that I do not wish to be associated with. This mostly stemmed from the conversation we had regarding the hysteria of contradictory narrative, specifically in regard to feminist dialogue versus sex culture. In speaking of hysteria, I know its history. Hysteria has been a mental disorder for over 4000 years. Hysteria was thought to be a disorder of the uterus, and Freud later expounded saying hysteria was something that only affected women. The word hysterectomy stems from the word hysteria and its origins. This was not my intent. In looking at the history of societal attitudes and narratives for most of my conscious and aware life, hysteria has been ongoing. Let’s take a trip down memory lane…

I remember tearing down that wall in ‘87. I remember the Gulf War in the early 90s. There was Y2K at the end of 1999. I recall the morning of September 11, 2001. Though it could be argued that the campaign started long before, it was the first real glimpse of the hysteria that could engulf a population at a whim through the methodological distribution of propaganda; the fight against terrorism and WMDs in Iraq. The Patriot act to fight the war against Americans engulfed us in hysteria. Snowden exposed NSA spying. Fast forward and we arrive at the 2016 elections and the Russia hysteria, Russia is behind the Podesta emails, and the election was completely rigged by Russia. Then we had the Pussy Hats march the day after the inauguration and then into senate buildings to protest a supreme court nomination in 2018. We can then leap into 2020, after years of Russian collusion in the 2016 election that never stuck in the court of law,  we got the pandemic out of China and the hysteria over an invisible foe. Lockdowns, small business closures, can’t hug your family. But that was just the beginnings. Then we had the bee el em / aunti pho protestors burning down cities across the United States during the summer, and the disinformation machine, known as the press, pushing hysterical narrative on hysterical narrative. In November we got the “most secure election in our history”, which, if you believe that, ok. A LARPfest (live-action roleplay) at the Capitol on Jan 6th, 2021, painting half of the election voters as terrorists, just to add icing to the proverbial cake. We still have covidian hysteria, but wait there’s more. In 2022, amidst woke poke mandates, masking children, we’re going to RUG covid and present two Eurasian cousins fighting as the next hysteria. They’re shooting nuclear facilities, famine is incoming, we need a new world order…

I think you get what I’m hinting at. (Please note, that is not even close to a comprehensive list, fill in the ghosts notes, pick up the theme). 

And I would hope that when listening to these podcast episodes since it is an attempt at nuanced conversation, one would be able to pick up on the ghost notes being played. Ghost notes are a concept that I picked up from playing and listening to jazz when I was younger. It is said that when a jazz cat is riffing on an amazing solo, not every note is played. Often a line will be played with speed and rhythmic accuracy that will leave out expected notes. The listener on the other hand will hear those notes played even though the musician does not actually play them. This is the concept of ghost notes. Thus, when I say hysteria in the podcast, I’d hope that the listener can pick up that it is not an homage to an archaic time and an eldritch diagnosis. Instead, it is a comment on the vibrational energy that is emitted from these narratives and selves that gyrate on this frequency. That when my guest says consciousness is theorized as a force, the listener might pick up that I had mentioned a theorized breakdown of three types of consciousness in a human that could be considered forces as well. I very much hope what is said between the words and phrases of the conversations recorded in this format, is heard and understood. But that will not always be the case because the beauty of beholding for oneself is that the interpretation is made by the individual. 

However, the goal here, as illustrated in the first episode of Up Your Nose With A Rubber Hose, is to move toward the light and the love and try to promote the positive potential of others. To share the hard-earned wisdom and knowledge for the betterment of humankind because what these fear-based narratives that charge the batteries of hysteria negate is the fact that we are all ONE, despite our nuanced differences. Due to that, we’re in this together so the moral high ground does not exist and we’d do a lot better if we started seeing the Creator in each and every one of us as opposed to aesthetic and superficial differences due to standards set by a society we were forced to join. We are all cosmic beings filled with light and we are most definitely in this together. Be kind, show compassion, be quick to forgive, and do not hold onto anger. These are lessons I try to live by, perhaps they make sense to you.