I was thinking this morning that the best boxers—those guys who stand toe to toe and punch each other for a while until someone falls down or a bell rings—are that good not because they have a better punch (although I’m sure they do) but because they fully accept being hit in the face. Well, they accept being hit anywhere but most importantly, they accept being hit face.

Why the face?

Consider that fact that that’s where our eyes are, our visual connection to reality, so (in effect), it is where “we” are…our thoughts and sense of self…so getting hit in the face has more gravity, more impact (pardon the pun) than getting hit elsewhere. When we are hit in the face, “we” are hit. Not to mention that it also hurts like a mother fucker.

So why does this matter?

The best boxers must think this way (I’m guessing); I have a job to do and that is to punch that other guy in all the right places with as much strength as I can—for as long as I can—until the bell rings or he falls down. Being hit and especially being hit in the face are in the way of me doing that consistently so I have to be OK with being pummeled in the face. Sure, I’m going to protect myself but I have to accept that being hit in the face is a fundamental part of what I do.

So that’s what they do. Over and over and over…

It’s not enough having the better jab or the more forceful right uppercut…the best boxers have to be able to take being hit in the face and not have that pain and agony affect their thinking and the fact that they have a job to do. They have to accept the pain as part of the role they play…as do we.

Not being hit in the face, per se, but experiencing pain nonetheless.

In our “non-boxing” world, “accepting being hit in the face” can be thought of as having self-confidence. We accept the punches thrown by life and reality, knowing that they are going to hurt but also knowing we have a life to live and that the pain will get in the way of us living that life. All of us every day have moments when we are hit in the face…by work, by our marriages and relationships…life itself…but we accept the pain…

…we move on and continue throwing our jabs and uppercuts.

Being the best husband or wife, employee or boss—whatever you consider a major aspect of the life you live—is often times less about being the best at what you do as it is about being able to accept being hit in the face in the process. It is deeply and knowingly understanding that being hit in the face…

…is a fundamental part of living.

Believe. Go. Do.

TrevorZen~

Here’s something I don’t understand…rich white people living in multi-million dollar townhouses and apartments (at least around here) spending thousands of dollars a year eating out nightly at restaurants, wearing $1,000 Louboutin shoes (women) and $5,000 suits (men), attending soirees and balls at the Met that cost millions to produce…all complaining about the working conditions in a Nike factory in Indonesia…or appalling living conditions in sub-Saharan Africa…simply complaining—and signing online petitions, writing passionate editorials, etc.—how the lack of resources (money) is *the* main factor for the sadness and despair throughout the world.

Um…yeah.

All comfort-cozy in their warm and dry Upper Eastside apartments, watching the horribleness of the world unfold on their 100 inch Samsung big screen, tweeting the ravages of income disparity from their $3,000 Mac Pro while simultaneously updating their Facebook status on their $800 iPad…

…um…yeah.

Hypocrisy is defined as a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess…which is the only thing I can think of when I am listening to and reading about these “virtuous” people constantly spout off about how evil and bad the world is (of course from the lack of money) while I am imagining them straightening their Hermes scarf or adjusting the waistband on their Gucci suit.

Shut the fuck up.

Or use your money, that green stuff that is overflowing from your pockets and bank accounts, to actually change something, to make a difference. It’s not enough, not by a gazillion miles, to juts sign a petition, if you feel that way—that the world is going to hell because of income disparity—then go spend your money, reduce the disparity, make a difference…but…

…you don’t ever want to actually spend “your” money of course…

…you want to spend “my” money and the money of other citizens to enforce that change. You want to legislate your views into law. You want to force everyone to think the way you do because your way of thinking is correct and theirs is wrong. You are beneficent and they are despotic…you are helping the poor and they are hurting them…

…you say from your apartment with the Central Park view….

…and drink your $40 a half pound espresso bean coffee…

…while munching a cronut that you paid someone $50 to stand in line for you to get.

Free speech.

Do you realize that the United States was the first country on the planet to embed in law the fact that no one has to “give” us permission to speak our minds. Think about that. Up to the late 1700’s, all speech was controlled and regulated by the government, whether it was a dictator or a monarchy of a Czar, they all “gave” their people revocable rights to their speach and boy did they control what was said….

· Hate the king? Say it in public and you hang.

· Dissatisfied with your allotment of bread from central planning? Say it in public and you’re shot in front of a firing squad.

· A little miffed that the Czar appropriated your entire farm and stole your daughter to be raped by his guards? Say it in public and your head will end on a pike.

Back then—sadly like some countries still today—you were born owing everything to the state, and they gave back to you what they decided to…whether it was speech or the fruits of your labor or even your family members. The state owned your body, mind and soul and you had no choice in the matter…at all. None.

And then came America.

The amazing and courageous men who founded this country knew that they wanted a country that could unleash the potential of mankind, a country that could far surpass every other p country on the planet and they knew that to do this they needed to recognize what everyone knew to be the truth anyway; man is born free. He needs no government to grant him this freedom.

His first crying breath is a cry of freedom.

Those incredible men also knew that inevitably, free men would come to understand that a part of freedom, some say *the* most important part, was the freedom to question the government itself, to constantly be the watchful eye that makes sure that freedom, true freedom, remains in this great country.

Which is why I want you to call me a fucking douchebag asshole.

Go ahead, it’ll feel good I think. Or a dickhead…or…whatever you want but I want you to freely express your feelings and ideas to me even if those feeling and ideas would have me doing physically impossible self-copulation while strategically mounted on a horse heading out of town. The point is…

…I don’t have to like or even understand your speech for me to want to protect it with my very life.

I really wish everyone thought the same way.

Believe. Go. Do…mother fuckers!

~TrevorZen

They immerse us, decide
us…let us fly soar be
the one the magnificent
the terrifying, the
insignificant and alone
dreams define us the way
we can’t ourselves, the
way we want to, hate to
have to, are made to
a world a life
balanced between
light and
dark
dreams fulfill and
create, they dredge the
deep recesses and
bring to light
fears and futures
joys and jeopardies
they allow us
they force us
they demand that we
believe
the unbelievable
and see the
un-seeable
Dreams convince us that we
are the things
we need…when the
things we need
can’t
be
seen

Here’s something interesting.

I’ve said before that we humans, when we are sad or angry, are that way for generally two reasons; either we look to the past and want to change decisions we’ve made, or we look to the future and want to change it without changing ourselves. The interesting thing I’ve recently discovered in my reading is that the future we look to is even less accurate than what I originally thought.

Let me explain.

Think of the future this way; it is not some far off set of experiences that you anticipate having, no, it is the anticipation of the *memories* that you will accrue during those future experiences! The future you imagine is, by necessity, actually *after* the future you imagine. Haa ha, it’s true…you cannot plan for reacting to experiences you haven’t had yet, your brain just ties itself into knots trying that, instead you have to imagine already having the experiences and then, and only then, can you imagine your reaction to them. Therefore…

…the future you imagine is after the future you imagine.

So, in our tiny little reptilian brains, when we get all emotionally upset that the future isn’t changing the way we want it to (because we are unwilling to change ourselves)…

…we’re not even thinking about the correct future to change.

Change is the fulcrum upon which our lives balance, we know innately that we cannot change the past and we *need to know* that the only way we can change the future is by changing today, the present. We must change our perception, how we look at change itself, to be able to effectively change the future…

…simply because we stop looking in that direction.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

The traffic light
hardly seen, the glare
a bright bright day, her
finger tips wrapped
into the palm of my hand
the small of my back, the
center of my
thinking—thoughts
watching for cars
busses, people
waiting
the light to change,
a warm
and bright sun
bouncing
among the warehouses
flashing off sunglasses
her fingers curled
holding my hand
my consciousness
and little bits
of happiness, held
while waiting to
cross the street…it
is this small moment
this microscopic
piece of life
her hand, a finger sliding
across a palm
I see the traffic, the light
the busses and people, the sun
glinting glaring
I feel her
finger tips
only.

Imagine being let loose in a huge warehouse with thousands of floor to ceiling racks, aisle after aisle after dimly lit aisle, set from one wall to the other (which is so far away that it fades into the darkness) and told, in one of the billions of boxes—which are not marked or numbered on the outside—to go find a Defrazzle Fribricator, with no google, no smartphone, map or app to help you find it.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Truth. A thing we constantly look for without knowing what it is, looks or sounds like.

Now there are billions of people on this planet who say that they know what truth looks like, that the books behind their religions contain plenty of them if only you would look (and pay the toll). There are others who say that their governments or philosophies are where you’re going to find truths but again, there’s a cost involved…a commitment to be made that precludes everything else. On and on and on there are people lining up to sell you their version of the truth.

All of them are wrong.

Sure, there are various truth looking things out there that may or may not be applicable but if those things aren’t first found within yourself then they have no relevancy to you or your life. They mean something, sure, but not to you…not really. Truths about a divine creator that have no essential underpinning of facts, truths about economics that make no sense unless you’re on the “right” side of the transaction, truths about love where power replaces compassion…

…all irrelevant truths that are useless to you.

We all have truths within us that we inherently know, just by being human and living, and they only need to be connected to reality—the thing that connects all of humanity together—for them to become relevant to our lives. We know how to love, we know how to cherish, to create and extend…we know these things to be true because we feel them, we are them. They are in us from the beginning…hardwired in our brains from day one.

So…before going from unmarked box to box to box in that vast and unmapped warehouse, ask yourself first a plain and simple question…

“What the fuck is a Defrazzle Fribricator anyway?!”

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

I like to run little thought experiments in my mind, just to take things to logical extremes, just to test my own petty little theories (about life, etc.) on a more than willing subject…namely, me. One I have been running in my head recently is that I imagine if everyone on the planet, all 7 billion or so, loved themselves, simply accepted who they are…for their successes AND their failures…for being saints as well as sinners…for simply being human…what would be the outcome?

The world’s economy would crash overnight.

Social media…traditional media….TV, newspapers, billboards and even word of mouth. All incestuous little bastards getting their heads together to figure out how profit from the perpetuation of your self-hatred. All bent on the idea…no…the irredeemable treatise that the deeper your self-loathing, the more decrepit your sense of self is, the more money can be wrung from your wallet or purse.

• Ford, Mercedes, GM, Honda, BMW, etc. don’t sell cars, they sell lifestyles and if you don’t buy their cars then you can’t have that lifestyle. You can’t have the social standing or the beautiful family or the big house or the amazing parties or the…and on and on and on.
• Gucci, Prada, Tom Ford, etc. don’t sell clothes, they sell self-esteem and glamour to people who cannot believe that they have that intrinsically, just by being human.
• Budweiser, Coors, etc. don’t sell beer, they sell the love of a gorgeous blonde or the thrill of whitewater rafting or the camaraderie of special close friends or…and on and on and on.

If the world’s population suddenly became self-aware and realized that they have been buying things that they have always had, that huge corporations and even governments have only ever been selling them lies since time memorial, then the very underlying fact that supports commercialism worldwide simply disappears…

…along with the world’s economies.

Simply, if you love yourself—sincerely accepting all facets of your existence as a human being, deserving of love and to love—then there is no advertisement, no social media pressure, no Super Bowl commercial that can sell you anything that you don’t want to buy already. That can convince you that there is another life that is in any way better…

… than the one you currently have.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

As children in the
countryside, the edge
of urban and other, the slice
between, we walked
into the night, unafraid
searching
firefly’s or fairy’s…the
same and
feeling the quiet coolness
the darkness, the
deep green
freshness of
living trees, grasses…we
absorbed the night,
a friend, an
excitement of being
enveloped in muted
living, unwatched
silence…we walked
into the night
unafraid but time passes
gains momentum, us falling
downhill like gravity
speeds up like sinking
is supposed and
growing older is
inevitable and we live
in cities—in time worn
boxes filled with today
—as we watch
tomorrow stumble
down the cold street
toward us, looking
for a warm
doorway…a minutes rest
but we send it back,
back out into
the night…a darkness
we cannot feel,
cannot absorb it’s quiet,
its muted living silence
that once excited, that
once breathed in our mouths
and we are afraid
to follow.

Here is something I know.

It truly seems that there are precious few people on this planet who are being loved by another person in the way that they believe they deserve. Everyone who is not one of the “lucky few” feels hollow and empty and continually sad—which creates deep felt anger—so they lash out, they complain and cannot understand why, in a world of 7 billion people, they cannot find the one person who will love them completely and accept them exactly the way that they are…without judgment or reservation.

How can it be so unfair, they ask…

They spend billions of dollars going to the gym and buying the right clothes and the right cars and they read books and watch videos about how to superficially improve and change aspects of themselves in order to attract the right man or woman. They read magazine articles and listen to friends advice—over and over and over—but they never, ever find the right answer—not the one they look for—so they believe that they are destined to be alone, forgotten, cast off from love and happiness by an uncaring and inattentive world. They are simply asking the wrong question.

All of these people want to fundamentally change the future…without actually changing themselves.

“But, but, but…I do change myself, I do it all the time!” people say…but going to the gym or buying new clothes or a new hairstyle is not fundamentally changing who you are, it is superficial and ultimately meaningless (like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic). The changes required are much, much deeper and they have to be explicitly matched to the future the person wants. Do you want a future where someone loves you completely and accepts you exactly the way that you are…without judgment or reservation? Great…learn to love yourself completely and accept yourself exactly the way that you are…without judgment or reservation.

And that future becomes yours.

Until you do that, you will continually find yourself hurt, sad and angry because life will seem so unfair and uncaring when, in fact, it’s not either…in fact it is you who are unfair and uncaring about yourself. It is you who are withholding that future from yourself. It is you who will not allow yourself to be loved the way that you deserve, the way that every person on this planet deserves.

Here is something I know: change yourself and you change the world.

Your world.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen