Congrats to Vince and Ryan for the launch of their new blog site Buddhist Geeks, with a logo by yours truly. According to the site, the boys are "planning on weekly articles on various Buddhist topics, both psuedo-academic and practice oriented, as well as having a weekly podcast". Kick ass fellas!

Theories no longer abide. The world-mess won't pin itself down long enough to be described, no matter which altitude your cogni-plane flies. This too is a theory. This too is wrong.

The greatest sins are not those of innaccuracy or cruelty, but those of boredom. Floating, festering, tear-jerking boredom. Boredom we will not abide. Boredom we will not tolerate. Stagnation, endless reiteration: against these we must guard, floating ever vigilant on the chaos-streams of the holon-within-a-fractal-within-a-monad-within-a-substance-within-a-lie. We are but appealing fictions, would-bes and could-bes failing to cohere in a manner which demonstrates mastery. The pontoons slide across the waves, the whales beach themselves and curse those who wish to push them back to sea.

If God has died, he has done so for a reason: because we have two feet, and inner ears for balance. We are wholly self-sufficient in our monstrous addictions, our mouths mark the true path, our souls mirror the bones of other souls. Spinning, locked in this vessel, humping one another to accrue the momentum needed for planetary lift-off. Tell the kids we are going Somewhere. Tell them we are Sane. But don't tell them the truth, the one that no one can admit: we have no idea what to do.

We have habits and rules, injunctions and swimming pools, modes of being and things we've always done. We even have maps, as partial as they might be. What we don't have is the fuel. But the sun gets closer, and our sun-scoops more impervious to heat and decay. The radiation my hold us back for now, but one or two iterations are all we need to drink away the light, and become ourselves the day.

Today was my last official day as an employee of Integral Institute. I spent three long, painful, exciting, inspiring, chaotic, confusing, and surprising years with the institution founded by Ken Wilber in the late 90s. Alas, it was time for me to leave the "hyperdance" for good. I hope they can muddle through this massive shift in organizational direction.

It is a curious thing about working for an organization with purpose: one can lose sight of one's own. Indeed, in my case, remaining on for so long had become a substitute for living my own path. I figured, if I was working for an organization with a purpose, then that was close enough to living my own life with purpose. I banged my head against that ceiling for nearly my entire tenure, never quite trusting that my own intuition could deviate so sharply from what I felt in many other ways was the right thing to do. Alas, as previous lovers had noticed, and as I came to find myself, such willful delusion was a sure-fire recipe for stagnation. It is only in this manner that I can say I have grown beyond an organization devoted to growth.

I wish them well.

(See also my former co-worker Ballard on the wonders of unemployment.)

I'm not really sure why C4Chaos put Ben Affleck at the center of this "Paul's Leaving I-I" collage he designed for me, but I... appreciate it? Lol. THANKS DAWG. If you squint, you can see what I looked like in summer 2003 when coming out to Boulder. Read his post.

So yesterday I had an hour or so with Ken, just the philosopher and I. We talked about my future plans, writing, post-humanism, the future of I-I, and a lot of other things. Honestly, it was really nice. Despite all the craziness at I-I and with his all of critics and everything else, he took the time to hang out, and I felt a real warmth. Deep down, he's a real dude trying to do the right thing, and fucking up on occasion like human beings are prone to do. More than anything, he's a hero, because he realized early on what he was best at in life, and has done everything in his power to bring that potential into reality. Many bows, Ken Wilber.

Nevermind all the hoo-hah about the CEO and I-I and all of that. Right now Ken is in serious but stable condition at a local hospital, and needs all the good vibes ya'll can spare. News here, prayers can be offered here. Ken, we're with you brotha.

(:-)

Some more interesting questions from Integral World editor Frank Visser on his "Wilber Watch" blog in lieu of recent developments at I-I. Relevant quote:

What the world needs are detailed, informed, grounded blueprints which can be picked up by policy makers. Or opinion leaders in the field of journalism. What it does not need is world saving campaigns from institutes that lack an accurate self-image.

Yeah, Frank can come across as a bit mean-spirited, and his timing re: Ken's current health condition is unfortunate (although timely given Steve Frazee's departure). For the most part, I see his questions as a challenge to those who are denying their own responsibility to act in the world in order to wait and see what I-I does. My question for Frank is: what are YOU going to do about this? (Also: what is the "good news" about I-I and Ken that you are ignoring or failing to honor?)

Trying times indeed...

I do not foresee we humes [humans] being supplanted by AI and "spiritual machines", not in the least. I foresee it more as a process of accretion, wherein we become entities bigger than ourselves, assemblages of bodies and sub-routines and autonomous processes organized around the aegis of the blank spot awareness which watches it all occur, united at the heart center which keeps the whole thing honest and good. A brain, a heart, and miles of tubing and wires and traintracks and wireless connectivity strobo-scoping the abstract intellectual schematics of the divine love/bliss stop--

I am an oil rig. I am a man-made island. I am a chain of coffee shops. I am a clothing distribution system. I am a collective of individuals acting in my name. I am the black hole around which things arise, around which things orbit. The human body seems like the final boundary, the inviolable suchness of an entity-in-existence, the pure correct form of sentience.

No.

We may consider that the human body was made to be blurred. It will not be erased, it will not be destroyed: it will only be made transitional, arbitrary, a distinction as unimportant as the segment of skin between forearm and upper arm. We are already there: to be without a WiFi link is akin to literal amputation. Mere superstition keeps us from being 17 feet tall (a technical possibility). Even grandmothers have BlueTooth.

I need my internet.

I need my colon.

And so rejoice as the New Gravity allows the assemblage of Things to accrete around the consciousnesses that Be. We are all machinic entities now, we are all weather systems smearing themselves across the battered plains of the old ages, accruing parts and sloughing off obstacles.

And in the bottom of all of this, in the deepest unfathomable center of the gasoline tornado, where the centerpiece of my living ageless flotilla of re-awakened spare parts and realigned feeling probes and elliptical technologies resides, free to be with and yet watch it all come and go, flex and flow, there is this impenetrable dot, that spec of understanding, the part of me that knows the love I have for all of you.

After ten years of drinking, working, partying, travelling, hoping, reading, writing, designing, loving, singing songs, telling jokes, and more drinking, the "best years of [my] life" are finally over, and not a moment too soon. Special thanks to all of my friends who made it all possible, especially those who've stuck around to see how this new upcoming decade will pan out.

Me, Matthew, and the rest of the POLYSEMY gang are plugging away on issue #2, hopefully due to ship by the end of the year. If you or anyone you know is an artist trying to make their way in the world, this publication is for you. Subscribe today!

After dropping a friend off at DIA yesterday morning, I got caught in the blizzard and had to spend the night at Denver's giant airline facility, along with thousands of others. And you know what? It wasn't that bad. Or rather, it was hardly wasted time.

The blizzard raged at speeds up to 40mph, and over the course of the afternoon I watched it pile up and thought to myself "Yes! An ordeal!". See, I was raised Catholic, and must have inherited some sort of impulse towards self-flagellation from my ancestors in the Church. This was hardly an ordeal as ordeals go, more of a minor middle-class mishap than a full-on Katrinoid tsunami, a blip on the disaster radar.

But the governor did declare a state of emergency, the buses and planes were all shut down, the Red Cross emerged and blankets were passed out, and as night fell and the darkness howled outside, I felt a bit like... Han Solo. Ok, well, Han Solo with a Timbuktu bag and stomach full of Seattle's Best Coffee, reading a science-fiction novel and wandering around in a seemingly eternal tour of concourse bathrooms, marvelling at the many ways people get themselves to sleep.

Me, I chose the rugged floor by baggage carousel #6, and actually grabbed a few winks before the overhead speakers blared to life at seven in the morning (who ARE those people they keep asking to grab a white courtesy telephone, by the way? Is "Debra Hotter" a real name, or code for "the Red Cross is running out of shitty gatorade--please help!"?).

As the plows arrived later on the next day, I felt a certain sense of disappointment: my largely anonymous shipmates, cast adrift on the stormy seas of the high Colorado plains, were going their separate ways, and this small frustrating cataract of sedentation, this accidental hotel, this exact opposite reason why people from all over the world came to DIA, was once again fluid and dissolving into the 10,000 directions of the world at large.

Safe travels, silent friends.

Ok. Phew. Breathe.

So it's the, uh (hehe) holidays and, uh, uh, uh.... POP! F**K! BANG! KILL!

Still with me?

Yes, the stress. Combine inclement weather, continental travel, TSA hassles, the complexity of the internet, family email threads, and the Gift Panic, and you've got a nice recipe for lesions on the heart and panic attacks. Mmmm, panic attacks.

You want people to know how much you love them by destroying yourself. You sacrifice time, checkbook, and sanity to give them the gifts they'd probably buy anyways (otherwise they wouldn't put them on their lists). You want to be there at the right times, see your college and HS friends on the allotted days, recontact losts friends at the right moments.

You want to do it all, to please everyone. But you can't.

So let's make a pact: let's be assholes. Let's be Scrooge. Let's be the Grinch, pre-transformation. Let's sit on our asses with a royal "bah, humbug!" on our lips, and tell our loved ones we will remember them at another time, we will shower them with gifts in another place, we will show them our love when the mood-moment is right, and not when social ritual may dictate.

Fuck the holidays. Let's make every day one.

Apologies to all of my lady-fans out there, but I am currently seeing someone: her name is Denver International Airport. Yet again, I find myself sleeping inside of her, feeling dirty and cold as I await the dawn and (at long last) my friggin' flight home. They say there's something haunting about a vast public space in the middle of the night: I wouldn't know. The only thing "haunting" about DIA is the fact that there's nothing to be haunted by here (and save it with the mural paintings: I've been more shocked by certain Catholic cathedrals than I am by the works displayed here, lol): it's a massive fortress designed to protect nothing but the shocking banality of intercontinental mezzo-space travel.

This is a place that ancient proto-futurists would have been barely able to comprehend, a massive automatic edifice in metal and glass spitting human beings into the air in groups of one or two hundred, loaded into rifled charges which land but minutes or short hours later in distance far-off cities with similar contraptions. And yet I make jokes about it being my girlfriend, laugh, snooze, and pay too much for AT&T wireless so I can watch spine-tingling video clips of Wolf Parade live.

And yet, if you look in the sky at this hour (5:11am Mountain), you can make out a faint streak of orange trailing a brilliant red dot: indeed, it is Santa the Claus, his wagon-train led by the ruby beacon of one John M. Rudolph, hungover this eve with good, top-shelf egg nog and the feeling that, yes, it may happen over and over and over again, but this is Christmas damn it, and everything can't ever be all that bad. I have a girlfriend, and I love her.

A world wrapped in chocolate, candles burn through the thick-meat air, as a haze of video game sounds -- bloops and bleeps and human reproductions -- wafts like neon between the red and green crystals of Santa's new nude year. I sit back in my stagnant back, spine aligned with the supine bottle of Guiness Stout I'm polishing off to make room for dinner, to make room for March. New things shine and sparkle and get unwrapped; old friends converge and new ones are made across the soft boundaries of financial exchange, and an economy of attention grinds its wayward way. Look at me. No, look at me. No, look at me and me.

And outside, snowflakes fall fallow following the silent whims of that oldest of masters, great grave Gravity, he of granite and g-forces and granaries and grandparents. That's the heft-bulk of this holiday, those traditions which worm their ways maggot-wise to the cold bloom of the stoned air, TV set on pause, radios set on mute.

[Attention C4!] Been reading the work of one Michael Goldharber all day today, architect of something called "the Attention Economy", which he views as the next wave of economic organization after money market capitalism (and feudalism before that). It's a lot to digest, but if I understand it correctly, what he's saying (this is as good a place to start as any) is this: because of the material abundance of Western society, along with the proliferation of personal broadcast tech (video, blogging, podcast etc), what has begun to consume our time and energy is getting, recieving, and seeking out attention. Anyone who's obsessed over a MySpace or (ahem) Zaadz profile for more than a few minutes knows exactly what I'm talking about: we're quickly reaching a state of existence where material comfort is no longer a big deal, and what we crave more than anything is attention, is love, is millions of fans chanting our name. To succeed at this new game means to have legions of loyalists -- and entourage, if you will -- who will wait on us hand and foot. Money quote (pun intended):

 If that is so, a point may be reached where money as currency is simply no longer necessary. It would do no more than duplicate attention flows that occur anyway, as easily extended via the Internet, search engines, etc. We can think of everyone having on average some attention from perhaps a couple of thousand people. Then everyone on earth - all six or seven billion people might be connected by no more than three or four degrees of separation. It will then behoove one to pay attention to the needs of almost anyone encountered, according to the stardom or connection to stars that person has. To put it most succinctly money is narrow band, but attention is wide band. In a world with plenty of bandwidth, the narrow band simply will get far less attention than now. Material goods production will also bring less attention to the producers, but still some, and it is through that that they will remain part of the new economy.

Pretty gruesome, not to mention weird, but check it out. Glad you're better, dude.

I'm not one to dwell on the past, but a few things are worth mentioning about the now-completed 2006. First of all, although my expectations weren't anything specific, it certainly went on tangents I did not foresee. For one, having my brother leave Colorado, and with that the end of our long nights of musical improv and recording, was tough to take, a real blow to my creative fulfillment. Shockingly, I turned things around by getting into stand-up comedy, and perhaps even more shockingly, I was actually kind of funny, at least for part of it.

Second, NO ONE could have foreseen the emergence of Zaadz, and the community we've all found here together. The people are great, but more so what I appreciate is the user experience of the site, which is so unlike the sites we did for I-I (Ruby on Rails kicks .NET ass!). Speaking of I-I, the "Phase 2" hiring of Steve Frazee as CEO was crazy enough, but his resignation was even more unprecedented, as a great many of us thought that the I-I ship would finally come in after 3+ years of pain and struggle. No more.

But things change, people move on. New opportunities emerge, old horizons dissappear, ideas descend and feelings arise: every year is like that, not just 2006. But 2006 was unique in a personal sense for one undeniable reason: in 2006, I finally became a man. I took responsibility for my life, and saw to making improvements and changes. I stood up for myself, set clear goals and asked for help when needed. I may have been dumped, drunk, booed offstage and recording bad songs, but I did so in full knowledge that, hey, life is rather precious, and so are our opportunities to live it.

Let's hope 2007 can be as equally instructive.