Turn the other…I’m trying to learn
how to love evil, to embrace
hate, to be that impossible person
smiling
accepting
being;
because we’re supposed to
be
(someone impossible
said once)…but…
there is so much beauty and
stupidly obvious goodness, so
much other
than hate/evil; it seems like
it is immaterial
unnecessary
needless unless we acknowledge
that we give a shit
but
I don’t
but…

I don’t want evil to exist
to flourish
to be in mind, head, soul
to be allowed
so I refuse to notice, to
mind, to care…to
allow
evil hate danger death corruption
a place inside, a warm spot, a
cozy alcove in my heart
I simply refuse
to be that
impossible person.

They amazed each other
in their own thoughts
feelings, but
without thinking, they
let a history of missing words
become
a complex, sad
enervating & unexpected thing
sliding
slowly
standing
between
them; a wall
glued together
with
words unsaid
with too many
thoughts unshared
she, he, she, he,
they breathed in disappointment
…his
…hers
like ground fog, kicked
up around restless
feet…it filled nostrils;
an acrid and stinging
rebuke—it was everything
nothing—it was what could be…
couldn’t be
dreamed
forgotten
he, she, he, she
and while they watched the moment
fall
they were it: the thing
that couldn’t
see
itself.

Sunday morning
and my eye
follows a curve under
striped linen, grey and white…
I feel the empty weight
of waking up, the small motions;
the rustle, barely heard
of hearts beating, lips,
our breathing and an
instant
of sadness, of longing for
the last dream
of living, loving, looking forward
and not back
…but…
she is there, the curve
the arc under linen, a
hip…an arm…
as sunlight filters though
intentionally
partially blocked
windows, the grayness
seeps away…from the room
from me
those curves, that hip
lips
all of her;
the dream can’t
compete.

This I know…

Reality is the same, regardless who experiences it. Your reality is exactly the same as my reality…but we see it differently because—within our conscious perception—we are looking through our own lenses. As we grow up, we go through many different experiences—benign, traumatic, amazing, awful, ecstatic, horrible, good and bad—and these experiences add distortions (scratches, smudge marks, fingerprints, etc.) to those lenses. When we think of what reality looks like, no matter that reality itself cannot change, what we see is definitely not the same reality that others see.

This is a problem.

Because each of our perceptions of reality is different, we have a fundamental barrier between all of us that prevents things like cooperation, sympathy, empathy….love. We strive for these things but are constantly battling a misalignment of language, of meaning. We talk past each other—continuing the strife and angst between us—thinking the reality we see is the same that they do. We are not aware that, while we simply see things differently, we are both still subject to actual reality.

And actual reality couldn’t give a fuck how we see it.

It is not easy understanding that we see reality differently therefore it is not easy to believe that reality is the same, regardless who we are. It is not easy to remove the distortions because we’re so used to them we cannot imagine another way of seeing. It is not easy but our shared future depends on it.

Knowing this allows us to realize that our essential purposes are exactly the same—to live, love and be loved—so our goal should be to work toward removing those distortions in the lenses through which we see reality. To, one by one, eliminate each distortion so that reality becomes clearer and clearer. It is by these actions that we will get clarity because with clarity comes understanding and with understanding comes cooperation…

…and love.

And that’s something we can all see.

Believe. Go. Do.

TrevorZen

At midnight…

…the crystal ball will drop in Times Square. Revelers around the world will straggle home, nod off, and greet the new year with a gritty dullness caused by sleep deprivation, over-stimulation and inebriation…OK, I’m talking about me specifically…but the behavior suggests that we give higher priority to the final few hours of the past than the first few hours of the future—perhaps because endings are more concrete than beginnings, and regrets sharper than resolutions. We see/feel/hear/know endings quite clearly—and painfully mostly—while resolutions are always ephemeral and ghost-like, until achieved at least, so we generally tell resolutions to fuck off.

But there is one resolution that you NEED to make: fall in love with yourself this year…

…I’m being heart attack serious here. Look in those dusty dark corners of your personal reality/soul/whatever you call that cavernous realm inside you and find all the evil-bad shit that you’ve been hoarding—yes, I said hoarding—for years. Drag all of the self-loathing, the destructive thoughts, the pain and the sadness, the disappointments and failures and just spill that shit out onto the front law so it’s in full antiseptic sunlight… then…

…just look at it—really fucking look at it this time…not the fake looking you do in therapy or when “confiding” to a friend; LOOK AT IT DAMMIT!—walk around it, grab it and hold it to see how much it weighs, examine the edges, notice the pitting and scarring from years of belief…TRULY see it for what it is…

…meaningless to anyone but you.

Only you care. Only you attach the negative and destructive effects that you’ve felt for all these years. Only you have made the choice that these horrible, utterly terrifying feelings have any weight, have any meaning whatsoever.

Only you care….so?

Make the other choice. Make the choice that they are nothing, that they are OK to feel…that you are OK to feel them. That you are no different than any other person, that you are allowed to have those feelings. That it’s natural and normal.

That you are normal.

You need no other person’s permission. You need no other person’s validation. You only need you. Seriously, just accept the shit out of yourself. Out of shape, messy, lazy, fat, skinny, forgetful, smelly, profane…what-the fuck-ever…love you for you.

You!

The only resolution that will ever mean anything is this: make the choice to you love yourself. To accept your imperfect life. To recognize that you are the same as every other human on the planet with faults and bad judgment, with mad successes and debilitating failures…because you deserve to love, you deserve to be loved…simply because you’re here.

So…just before midnight—wherever you are—when we’re all in the throes of creating that massive hangover known as New Year’s Day…I really want you to know that, regardless you making the resolution to love and accept yourself…

…I love and accept you, simply for being you.

Now fuck off, I have drinking to do.

Believe. Go. Do.

TrevorZen

This is what I know.

You pick a spot on the horizon and, like you’re in a ship, you steer straight at it. It doesn’t matter what that spot represents—college, a relationship, a new job, a slimmer you, whatever—you just make sure you keep pointed toward that spot. You make sure that all or most of what you do is done in order to keep moving toward your goal.
But…

…in life we all run into shit that we can’t help, we can’t stop it…it just happens. In a lot of cases the shit is so deep and so frightening that it stops us from moving forward, like a brick in the face it stops us from moving toward that spot on the horizon.
Now here’s the thing…

…you may be stopped, you may think that you’re making no headway, you may even feel like a worthless piece of shit because it feels like you’re NOT MOVING…but as long as you can still see that spot on the horizon, as long as you still point your ship at it…

…you’re still on your way there.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

Some things I know…

Everything starts with you.

That may sound self-centered and egotistical but it is only because we’ve been trained by society to suppress our sense of self, to accept the lies told to us daily. We have been trained from birth to view the whole of society as the prime reason for being…when in fact it is complete bullshit. We are your own reason for being and being the best us…

…is THE point.

Society will tell us—loudly and repeatedly—that we aren’t good enough, we’re not skinny enough, we don’t have the right car, the right beer, the right job or bank account, the right clothes and on and on. Society lives and breathes on the fact that it and it alone dictates what our life is and what it should be and it does so by preying on our fears.

Our fear of not fitting in, whether it’s dodgeball in 3^rd grade or the freshman class at college,
Our fear of failure, whether it’s a paper route at 12 or a promotion at 36,
Our fear that we will never love…
…or be loved.

Once society succeeds in making us hate and loathe ourselves, we are able to be controlled…we become docile and manageable. We are then only silent cogs in a massive consumerist machine where our fear becomes the basis of our decisions.

But know this; we were born with all the personal tools and self-confidence needed for us to a be happy, productive human beings…giving back in equal portions to what we take from life—regardless what society dictates because by taking control of our own destiny’s, we can create the society and future we deserve. We can do this because we were born with these 3 things:

• We were born to accept that we are fallible and imperfect…which makes us able to accept others’ failings,
• We were born to understand that we have the sole power to change ourselves…and that we cannot force others to change, and, ultimately,
• We were born to love ourselves which is the only real way that we are able to love others.

Simply; whatever is required of us to live happily—and thus create the society we deserve…we MUST manifest within ourselves first. We, exactly like all 7 billion or so on this rock, are human and imperfect and—just being our best selves—are all we will ever need…

… to succeed, to fit in and to love and be loved.

Believe. Go. Do

~TrevorZen

Love is a ruined emperor
presiding over
a broken kingdom of regret and
promises lost
forever searching empty rooms,
burnt fields, looted corpses…
looking for faded fortunes
what
once
was
imagining parades,
brightly lit
ballrooms
throbbing bass beat of
joy and abandon
now wondering at the hubris
a wicked, corpulent
fullness of assurance
when doubt
didn’t exist
until
it did…now
waiting for a new age
an invading
campaign of light
and love
and the rising
of a new throne.

We
are newly formed,
dust
and debris from stars,
from
sunshine, we invade and take over
occupy earth
with large forebrains, we
tool and toil, we
monopolize life, displace
and denude…like a fungus, a disease
we spread
and we don’t know anything
but we know life
a habitual rampage toward
living
while the universe ages slightly
we age rapidly
owning what was once
un-ownable
land
sea
air
we occupy earth
until we’ve run the course
hoping…hoping we can
devise define demand
ourselves into
space
where another
earth
awaits
this disease.

fire burns the hand that
throws the Molotov as
well as the flaming car,
words
hurt the sayer as well as
the said to…and still
we don’t see
they are the same;
one side of a row boat
needs the other
to remain floating
yet one rower
is on the
wrong side,
only because
there are two sides and
with oar in hand, with
straining back, through
daylight and into
night
the rower knows to row
unaware of the infrastructure
and connection
deep and
sustained
of the boat under the rowers, under
duress it creaks, the wood
flexes, swells from wear
and water…but…
row boats need care, need
“looking at”
because erosion, injury, the sun, time;
can
and will
silently destroy the cladding, the spars
and bulkheads
that displaces the water that
floats a boat
so;
when rowers
only row
the boat will fail
and both sides
will drown.