THE ILLUSION OF REWARDS- excerpt from Awareness by Anthony De Mello

AWARENESS WITHOUT EVALUATING EVERYTHING

[...] This reminds me of this fellow in London after the war. He's sitting with a parcel wrapped in brown paper in his lap; it's a big, heavy object. The bus conductor comes up to him and says, "What do you have on your lap there"? And the man says, "This is an unexploded bomb. We dug it out of the garden and I 'm taking it to the police station". The conductor says, "You don't want to carry that on your lap. Put it under the seat". Psychology and spirituality (as we generally understand it) transfer the bomb from your lap to under your seat. They don't really solve your problems. They exchange your problems for other problems. Has that ever struck you? You had a problem, now you exchange it for another one. It's always going to be that way until we solve the problem called "you."

THE ILLUSION OF REWARDS

Until then, we're going to get nowhere. The great mystics and masters in the East will say, "Who are YOU"? Many think the most important question in the world is: "Who is Jesus Christ"? Wrong! Many think it is: "Does God exist"? Wrong! Many think it is: "Is there a life after death"? Wrong! Nobody seems to be grappling with the problem of: Is there a life BEFORE death?

Yet my experience is that it's precisely the ones who don't know what to do with THIS life who are all hot and bothered about what they are going to do with ANOTHER life. One sign that you're awakened is that you don't give a damn about what's going to happen in the next life. You're not bothered about it; you don't care. You are not interested, period.

Do you know what eternal life is? You think it's everlasting life. But your own theologians will tell you that that is crazy, because everlasting is still within time. It is time perduring forever. Eternal means timeless no time. The human mind cannot understand that. The human mind can understand time and can deny time. What is timeless is beyond our comprehension. Yet the mystics tell us that eternity is right now.

How's that for good news? It is right now. People are so distressed when I tell them to forget their past. They are so proud of their past. Or they are so ashamed of their past. They're crazy! Just drop it! When you hear "Repent for your past", realize it's a great religious distraction from waking up. Wake up! That's what repent means. Not "weep for your sins". Wake up! Understand, stop all the crying, Understand! Wake up!

Experimental Photography

 Experimental Photography 

Beach Friends

The Billie Eilish Effect

I reflected upon our society, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be authentic. The constant advertisements wear me down. Sewer rats driving Mercedes teach people how to grow their followers, as if that's what is most important in life. These pests will show you how to turn your hobby into money. Basically, they'll train you to unsee the quality in your creative life, and help you deface it by measuring its worth in dollars. And if you're not already pulled into shallow waters, they'll show you how to get paid for an old auto-accident.

And here I thought YouTube was invented so we could escape commercials, not drown in them.

Our society has been hypnotized into perpetuating the rat race- the false matrix. We have lost track of the point of life.  We're too mesmerized by giving our attention away or chasing external validation.

The most recurrent Youtube ad's are blatantly ageist. These marketers verbally attack a protected class and face no repercussions. 

"3 mistakes old people make...."

They say, as if youth were a skill.

In other words, our society has gone mad. We are the Leonardio DeCaprio in Shutter Island. We think we're killing it in life, yet don't realize we're the butt end of a very long joke. Yes, cool, our affiliate marketing payouts are mediocre at best. But what's truly tragic is how quickly we sold out and gave up our dignity for pocket change. We surrendered our authenticity, our full range of emotions- the very thing that makes us human.

For years, women were taught that there was no such thing as admiring another woman. There was only envy. We rationalized the irrational, the ugly, the cruel. As if it weren't already hard enough to be a woman in a society that patronizes and placates the feminine.

And just when it seemed like all hope was lost, a young woman released a dreamy song called Ocean Eyes on Soundcloud. Her Soundcloud picture was gorgeous, her voice was surreal and dystopian, and her melodies ethereal. Her name: Billie Eilish. 

It was as if rain finally fell on the desert of our entertainment industry.

Many people in their twenties feared they weren’t hot enough, skinny enough, or bitchy enough to protect the woman Hollywood monsters would destroy. They feared they wouldn't be taken seriously, or they'd be over-sexualized, objectified...you name it.

This is what I call The Billie Eilish Effect:

Our culture has been a dry lake for so long that we’re starving for realness. Billie Eilish came out with wild, unapologetic art and dressed like Flavor Flav. She didn’t care what her body looked like. She focused on what mattered most — her creative expression. Young and old women alike recognized the wild woman in her, and it was like the wild woman within them was looking into a mirror. It cracked the decades-old patriarchal nonsense we had tolerated for far too long.

"Is my art too much?" 

"Is this song too hood?"

"Do I look just enough sexy, but not quite trashy in this picture?"

Enough! Share your art, your creativity, now. Not at the right insta-post time. Now.

 No one thought, "Oof that Billie Eilish girl had a music video with demons...."

They were just like, "Hell yeah go Billie."

Our culture is so starved of authenticity, of uninhibited self-expression, that any authentic art you create will be devoured gratefully by the masses. 

People are so starved for something real that they will embrace your creative genius- no matter how strange.

You're laying the foundation for future women to express their creativity freely too. And don't you dare apologize for your work "not being serious/good/tasteful enough." 

Your art is exactly what society has been waiting for. Don't edit the realness out.

Is this how you want your children to experience the beach?

 

We can do better than this.

Earth is the best home.

 #Cleanthebeach

Food Alternatives

 Foods that actually taste better than their unhealthy alternatives

Anything in ( ) is optional 

Frozen Banana + Chocolate Protein Powder + Almond Milk 

 (+ frozen avocado) (+ beet powder for red velvet flavor and color)

vs. 

chocolate milkshake

Chickpea Brownie batter dip  

vs.

Brownie batter 

Frozen dragon fruit + heavy whipping cream

-blend this up for some hot pink, delicious whipped cream-

vs

canned whipped cream

Kombucha

vs.

Soda

When you realize the healthy alternative is better tasting, you start to wonder why the unhealthy version is mass produced and mass marketed.....

Pobre Americanos.