Love yourself…learn to love yourself…and everything will be fine, great, amazing even. You hear this from me and from others all of the time but what exactly does it mean? How DO you love yourself? Hell, how do you know that you don’t already, but, more importantly, how can you do something if you don’t know what it is? Well, let me tell you what I know about loving yourself…it’s surprisingly not that difficult to do, but, it’s also the hardest fucking thing you’ve ever done.

Forget romance and intimacy and all popular notions of what love is as they have nothing at all to do with loving yourself—after all, you’re not taking yourself on a date. Instead, fully embrace the idea of honesty…real honesty, not that sugar coated shit that you use to make yourself feel better when you fail at something. Not that kinda/sorta/maybe crap where you leave out little details like how much you detest yourself when you can’t do something well, or as well as others, because you hear your mom or your dad’s disappointed voice in your head.

No…real live, actual honesty where you look at yourself—this exact instant—without distortion, without bias…as a fully paid-up member of reality…and truly see yourself in all of your magnificent beauty and in all of your grotesque ugliness. Loving who you are means that you accept the good and the bad, the brilliant and the fucked up, without condition, without restraint. It means that you let go of judgment, that you release yourself from comparison to an impossible standard…simply, it means that you recognize, and believe, that you are human; fallible and flawed, the same as the other 7 billion on this planet.

Loving who you are does mean that you automatically like everything about yourself. In fact, when you love yourself, you are finally able to clearly see those areas that you don’t like, that are holding you back or that cause you and those you love pain. Loving yourself lets you finally see the things that you can change…without the surrounding guilt or regret bullshit from society…and also the things that you can’t change…

…and, without fanfare and drama, simply accept both.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

There are people who are constantly looking in the rearview mirror…much more concerned about where they’ve been than where they’re going. They look back and regret turns they’ve made, stopovers that took too long, deviations from the map they believe their life follows. While they may occasionally glance ahead, they never truly see what’s in front of them, what is right now. They are blind to the opportunities they’re passing, the people in their life they are running over, mangling with their inattention. They just keeping looking back, reliving wrong turns, dead ends…hideous crashes…never realizing that those horrible things happened because they simply weren’t where they were supposed to be; both hands on the wheel, eyes ahead, in this moment, right now.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

Here’s a list of men in the NYC greater metro area, in case you wondered.

First you have your garden variety “Schlub” who is generally a nice guy (can’t spell “gym” though) but has no ambition and while he does have a job (office drone, insurance salesman, etc.), he still lives with his mother and couldn’t make a decision to get out of a wet paper sack. He has no opinion, doesn’t care where you go or what you eat and usually is OK just sitting at home thinking of different ways to kill himself.

There is the “Man/Boy” (often mistaken for the Douchebag) who is generally good looking and knows what a free weight is but whose mental and emotionally maturity peaked in college and has not changed, nor will it likely ever, since then. Generally unemployed (unless it’s IT) he too lives with mom and dad and still hangs out with his friends playing Xbox, beer pong and doing keg stands. He cannot say vagina with a straight face and still plays pranks (generally hurtful ones) on his friends. He can be identified by the wispy beard, the ironic t-shirt and converse high tops as well as the fact that he’s likely fixing your computer.

The “Douchebag” comes in all sorts of varieties but is most often identified by his blatant misogyny and general disdain for women other than as places to put, into their various body openings, his (typically small) penis. The fact that a woman’s mouth and anus are preferred means of bodily entry means (we can only hope) that they don’t generally procreate. It is believed, however, that they spawn spontaneously when a critical mass of feces, steroids, hair gel and fake tanning spray are subjected to irradiation from a 7-11 burrito. This most often occurs at the Jersey shore.

The next on the list is the “Sports Guy” who, like the Schlub, is generally a nice guy but has little to say about himself or the world outside of sports teams. As infatuated with sports as he is, he doesn’t actually play any of them. He does not read (the paper, books, etc.) unless, again, it has something to do with sports. When he is with friends at the sports bar, women seemingly disappear as they cease being a part of any conversation. When not at the sports bar he is on the couch, wearing some form of sports jersey, watching sports.

Then there is the “Regular Guy” who, as the nomenclature suggest, is about as average as a guy can get. Medium height, medium build, he goes to the gym the average number of times a year. There is not much to say to further describe this creature except that he does live on his own, although sometimes with other Regular Guy roommates, and he usually remembers birthdays. He can be found milling about grocery stores, malls and un-trendy clubs.

The “Great Guy” is a prize catch as he is generally good looking, has a good job (with ambitions to succeed further) and reads something other than sports scores. He has seen the inside of more than one museum and he is able to talk intelligently about things other than himself. He generally likes women and can listen to them talk about things that matter to them. As of today, there are approximately 5 of these on the planet (the other 2.3 billion Great Guys are gay).

The “Amazing Guy” simply doesn’t exist so will not be described here. A reported sighting was documented in the late 1800’s but it was later revised down to Great Guy when it was discovered that he could not, in fact, walk on water.

We hold onto these
ideas, these moments
the ones that we think
have made us, have
created this place
we are in, this single spot
in space, in time…we
hold onto them
because we cannot
imagine having nothing
to hold…having our own
selves only, simply, in
order to be who we
are…we hold onto them
thinking that if they are
nothing then we are
no one, thinking that
nothing might be far
too heavy for us to
hold…never understanding
that we arrived here with
nothing…we will go from
here with nothing and
all the ideas and thinking
and moving and dreaming
and having and holding
and seeing and believing
and living…
means nothing and that
we have held nothing,
before we knew it was
heavy…we have held
only ourselves…
and we were
something.

Everything is simple; velocity, direction, trajectory…inertia in a straight line from there to here…everything is complicated; thought, meaning, emotion in alternating lines crossing back and forth, from there to here

Think of this thing, this life we live, as intersecting circles and spheres, spinning around an axis of feeling and emotion, flirting with gravity, childishly playing with electromagnetism as it sinks into and rises above what we know, what we believe.

All is not lost and we hope we never say that but we do say it, sometimes, when we think that it may be…when we are afraid of the little bits of life that fall away, that we shed when we are sad and that get caught in the folds of the reality we’re surrounded by.

We look toward a future we want to be different and yet, we don’t want to change ourselves, don’t want to try, to fail, to move past the vision of who we are, who we want to be…or we look to the past and want to maker decisions different, doubt, feel remorse about.

Everything is simple; velocity, direction, trajectory…inertia in a straight line from there to here…everything is complicated; thought, meaning, emotion in alternating lines crossing back and forth, from there to here

We are who we are, inside we know that, feel that, are that…and it is strange because knowing it, we ignore it, we don’t use it, watch ourselves become people other than who we are…people we wouldn’t like if we met in the park, at the bar…

Everything is simple; velocity, direction, trajectory…inertia in a straight line from there to here…everything is complicated; thought, meaning, emotion in alternating lines crossing back and forth, from there to here

Everything is what it is supposed to be…if only we knew what that was…

We wake up one day, one dismal
dreary morning we feel the earth move
slowly beneath us, around us it is a
stop motion existence, stuttering
and shaking we feel it all as we go on,
as we think as we feel as we realize
how stopped we are, how motionless
we’ve become how small our horizons
have shrunk, we breathe shallow
breaths and wait, but nothing changes
on it’s own nothing surfaces to replace
the nothing we already know…

When did we know that we couldn’t
that we ourselves were the blockage, were
the stoppage…the brick wall in our path
when did we know?  Was it early was it
birth was it a long time coming was it
suddenly upon us…but we stop ourselves
thinking—because we knew freedom—we 
knew expansive landscapes, we knew that
we could…innately, naturally, we knew
one time, one moment but we are hanging
on to what we forgot…

The secret to doing, to being, to having
the future sitting in our hands, having
the moment untouched and new, we
know the secret is to not know that we
can’t…to be in that glorious moment
of ignorance where the world is free
and available for all who ask, who try
who persevere to capture and hold the
moment, the minute…without regard
without fear, without thought of what
comes next what is planned what is
left to be feared…

In that dismal morning, we fear ourselves
and by doing so, we stop our world
and curse ourselves to live in the eternal
moment just before we decide, always
seeing the decision there, waiting to
make us free and we cannot move we
cannot feel because someone, somewhere
told us convinced us that we were unable
immature weak slow stupid unlovable
ugly retarded fat skinny loud obnoxious
and we believed that we couldn’t and
by believing, we knew we couldn’t

In that moment
that slight tiny little
moment that arrives
that alights on
skin, on the precipice
of beginnings, I am
watching you
through happy eyes
through mysterious
shadows…I see you
watch me back and
the warmth of meaning
like condensation
coats skin…from my
breath I am falling
toward you, toward
the moment when
we impact when
we entwine, hold tight…
when the linen sheet
slides away falls from
skin from heights
from the moment
when, watching
you becomes everything
and almost everything
becomes you
in that moment
I am.

Please know that you are not your choices; you can do something dumb but that does not make you dumb…you can make a mistake but that does not mean “you” are a mistake…doing something stupid does not make you stupid.

We can only make choices with the information and experience we have…at that precise moment in time. Later, when we judge those choices—based on additional knowledge and experiences we’ve gained—we may find that they were wrong or unwise but, at the moment we made the choice, we were making the best one we could, based on the knowledge and experience we had.

Stop hating yourself for the choices you’ve made in the past because, at that precise moment, you made the best possible choice you could…regardless how you judge yourself now.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

I am tired of hearing how we all just need the courage to accept the universe and then we can live our lives in peace and harmony and be happy…wow, what utter bullshit. Listen to what I know is true; you do not need courage to live your life, you need courage to stop living the life prescribed by society. That life is designed to keep you quiet, to keep you mild and unable to disturb the balance of power…that life is designed to keep you ineffectual and inadequate so that those who know the truth are able to remain in control.

The “truth” is that life is yours by birthright and “life” means having opinions and believing in ideas and when faced with a dumb fuck, calling them a dumb fuck. Life is not about being right or wrong because we are all right and wrong, life is about standing for what you believe in—even if you are the only one—but being able to change your mind when new information arises. Life is about living, simply and fiercely, toward your personal dreams and ideals while letting everyone else do the same…on their terms in and their time…

What is courage? Courage is standing on the edge of an unknown abyss—a job offer, going back to school, falling in love—and just taking that step forward…

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

A quiet moment watching
sliding time so careful, so
hesitant so almost
motionless, she lives inside
a dream, a solitary flash, a
missed opportunity, she
is and isn’t everything I see
on white linen, on her warm
brown skin, on the idea of
her and me and her mostly
I am happy, I am here fully
knowing, fully aware of
that skin, that moment…that
movement of eyelash of
finger tip lightly brushing,
of shadow silent and without
weight, she lives inside
a dream I know, am knowing,
looking into deep wells of
feeling of warmth and
acceptance, her eyes watch
my eyes and yes I know she
lives inside a dream, my
dream, my place, my moment
my waiting for opportunity
to awake and have her
here with weight and
knowing, shadow and space
…the dream released