“Erick, James is here!” A huge smile filled Brett’s red, sweaty face. He’s drunk, and hoping I’ll go make a scene he can laugh at. It’s 2009, I’m a senior in high school, and my friends love to watch me suffocate people’s belief in God. Brett is hoping I’ll do that to James (he didn’t like James, about a girl I think). I’m not sure how the reputation started, but I have a painful memory of making a local pastor’s daughter cry in class as her and I debated the existence of the Christian God....
8 days ago • 4 min read
I recently watched the new Catch Me If You Can on Netflix. It was better than I expected, and the ending reminded me what I loved most about V for Vendetta. V for Vendetta is one of the myths that made me. I have watched it dozens of times. It lives in my bones. There are many facets I love about the movie, but what stands out here is the temporal vision V displays in his quest for vengeance. Our temporal vision is our ability to extend our worldview into the future - to anticipate,...
14 days ago • 3 min read
Welcome to another Feasting Friday (Monday Edition). This week's feast is brought to you by The Dharma Artist Collective; where Artist's go to focus and create. Poem that brought me to tears: David Whyte is one of my spiritual heroes. He pairs depth and levity in a way I don't see often, and when I do, I feel relieved. His energy and his telling of David Wagoner's "Lost" brought me to a stillness deeper than all this week's meditating combined. Enjoy. What I am reading: "Setting God Free" by...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
On the night of April 15th, 2025, after 193 days vocal chord spasms, I got my voice back for about 5 hours. It happened, of all places, at a business mastermind. Some of you may not know, but I've been co-hosting large events the last 7 years with Fit For Service. However, I have never gone to someone else's event. In all my days on this Earth, I had never gone to any mastermind or summit outside those I help create. This surprised me when I realized it a few weeks ago (what arrogance lol)....
2 months ago • 4 min read
The elevator opens and I see a man holding a boxcutter. He's flipping it open and closed as he cusses at someone through his airpods. His construction vest didn’t cover the tattoos on his sunburnt neck. We made eye contact as I passed him to get to my room. The glance was brief, but I think he could feel I thought his cursing, his volume, and his boxcutter were in bad taste. His glance back was a mildly confused hostility. An image of him lunging to cut me and my elbow breaking his nose...
2 months ago • 5 min read
Around 10, I started having a recurring nightmare. I’m in the passenger seat of a car. I’m looking out the window and I see we are driving along a mountain’s edge. I can see a thousand feet above ground. Fear begins framing everything. I look to the driver seat, expecting to see my dad, seeking reassurance.No one is there.No one is driving the car.My fear peaks into terror.I wake up panicked. I don’t know if it a false memory, but I recall waking up in my baby sister’s room. It’s the middle...
3 months ago • 15 min read
Being an artist means getting away with it. Carl Jung was an artist who got away with being a prophet. In October of 1913, Jung started having a recurring apocalyptic dream. I saw a monstrous flood covering all the northern and low-lying lands between the North Sea and the Alps. When it came up to Switzerland I saw that the mountains grew higher and higher to protect our country. I realized that a frightful catastrophe was in progress. I saw the mighty yellow waves, the floating rubble of...
3 months ago • 12 min read
Did you know your name is guiding your life? A 2002 study, delightfully called “Why Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore: Implicit Egotism and Major Life Decisions,” found that we’re more likely to marry people who’s name start with the same consonant as ours, Louis is more likely to move to St. Louis, and Dennis is more likely to become a dentist. It’s worth noting that the effect size is small, but it is higher than chance. Hilariously, if you want to believe telepathy is real, the...
3 months ago • 8 min read
I hear birds singing, and trees swaying outside my window, and I want to talk about the apocalypse. I can cover rent for the next year, and our home is filled with love, and I want to talk about the death and the madness. I get invited to another party, another ceremony, another birthday. I don't go. I want to contemplate the suicides and schizophrenia. He's back. He wants to flare fangs and rip out my throat when I watch 3 hours of Netflix. He wants to spit in the face of the limp majority...
4 months ago • 7 min read