Would you be my anti-valentine?

Dear Lover,

What would it take to wean you off Valentine's Day?

Bury the hatchet

I used to love her, but I had to kill her

I used to love her, hm yeah, but I had to kill her

I had to put her six feet under

And I can still hear her complain

What could be a better counterpoint to a severe romantic song than a humorous murder ballad? Apparently, it was written by Izzy of Guns N' Roses about Axl's dog. I would take it metaphorically. Any journey of transformation I have embarked on entailed dissatisfaction with the status quo. As a rule of thumb, the more intense the dissatisfaction the more profound was my transformation. So in a way, I had to bury those parts of me that no longer served the totality of myself. Yes, those parts still complain every now and then—even after I've put them 6 feet under. But I had to bury them for me to at least have the chance to grow, live long and prosper.

Dream State

[Refrain 1]

Invincible skin

It's how we all begin

[Chorus]

Awake, awake

This is a dream state

Though we were wide awake

This is a dream state

Though we were wide awake

This is a dream state

Transformation or as the Eastern Traditions would have it, awakening, first involves one realising that one is asleep. Son Lux goes even further. This is a dream state though we are wide awake.

Ironically (or perhaps not) I discovered this song while watching The Vow a nine-hour HBO docuseries about the NXIVM Cult leader Keith Raniere who was recently sentenced to 120 years in prison. It's a sad truth that many of the so-called truth-seekers are the ones usually victimised by charismatic cult leaders. While inside, the cult members usually think they're the awakened ones while the rest of society is asleep. Only when and if they manage to get out do they realise that they were the ones imprisoned in a dream state though they proclaimed they were woke.

Digital ghost

Only to find you all alone

Curled up with machines

Now it seems you're slipping

Out of the land of the living

[Chorus]

Just take a closer look

Take a closer look

At what it is that's really haunting you

I have to trust you'll know this digital ghost

But I fear there's only so much time

'Cause the you I knew is fading away

Sometimes it's not enough to escape from or elude a cult when the surrounding culture itself is full of digital land mines that could take us away (slowly but surely) from the land of the living. A lot of the distractions dangled in front of us in this society of the spectacle are designed to hide from ourselves that which is really haunting us.

If we are not careful we would have wasted precious time engaging in the Internet of Beefs only to find out at the end of our days that we have run out of time. We have allowed our IRL lives to slip away while we serve as mouthpieces and clickers for memetic ideologies.

Litany against fear

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

If I am to take a closer at what is really haunting me I must find a way to be with my fear without it taking over and making decisions for me out of panic and the myopic instinct of self-preservation.

Not to fight, deny, or suppress it but allow fear to pass over me and through me. Let the storm run its course that I may find myself in the middle, at the eye, at peace amidst the surrounding conflagration.

Reclaim your mind

Catalysts to say, what has never been said

To see what has never been seen

To draw, paint, sing, sculpt, dance, and act

What has never before been done

To push the envelope of creativity and language

And what's really important is, I call it the felt presence of direct experience

Which is a fancy term which just simply means we have to stop consuming our culture

We have to stop consuming our culture

We have to create culture

Don't, don't, watch TV, don't read magazines, don't еven listen to NPR

Creatе your own roadshow, the nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe

Once I have this right relating with fear I can begin to reclaim my mind. I can begin by not consuming the pre-packaged cultural artefacts laid before me surrounding this annual calendar event called Valentine's Day.

I can find my own, unique, never been said before expression to celebrate a day of love, loving, and being loved. There is no need to couple it with the neoliberal capitalistic mode of wasteful production.

In fact, it is much sexier, for me at least, if a lover can extricate their love language free from the economics of colonisation and exploitation. Let us not consume the culture but live it. Let us not be atomic consumers within an artificial 1960s Madison Avenue culture but be more like probiotic bacteria in convivial cultures of microbiomes comprising our gut instincts.

To be open from the centre redirected to the moment

Free, from all old stories I've been told, I walk through the valley of my own shadow

[Verse 2]

Awareness is my virtue and I'm grateful for the search to

Dive deep within my own mind and to trust the intuition of the lives I've lived before this are essential form of knowsis it's a simple form of freedom it's as smooth as inhalation, oh the exhale is releasing all the tension I've been feeling, on the surface and beneath me I'm connecting to my spirit, and I'm here now right before you, I am present in this moment, my life's work is to honour the great beauty all around you

Extricated from cultural consumption, free from the old stories I've been told then I could begin to find myself each moment at peace with my own shadows.

At this stage of my development spiral, I can finally begin to be free — free to love, find love, give love and receive love from the other.

Return to Innocence

If you want, then start to laugh

If you must, then start to cry

Be yourself, don't hide

Just believe in destiny

Don't care what people say

Just follow your own way

Don't give up and use the chance

To return to innocence

After hard-won clearings and escapes from the dream state, I can be as, what the Christ has said, be like a child again. Not childish but childlike. A reclaimed innocence that is the beginning of love and devotion.

All is full of love

Twist your head around

It's all around you

All is full of love

All around you

With my remembered innocence perhaps I can see the world as it really is — a world full of love. I can feel at peace that I will be given love, I will be taken care of, and I can, I have to trust it. Not believe but trust. A trust that grows from doubts that persist. Do what is right even if there is no guarantee I will be done right.

Thy will be done

Love... Thy will be done

I can no longer hide, I can no longer run

No longer can I resist Your guiding light

That gives me the power to keep up the fight

The most beautiful of all paradoxes is that the more I free myself, the more I exercise my agency, the more power and will I have, the more it feels good to surrender to what is at each moment.

There is no act more powerful than the act of surrender to the other. Until one has done it, has gone through it, surrender is one of those things that, for me, cannot be explained. It cannot be taught, it can only be learned.

Back to the ordinary world

But I won't cry for yesterday

There's an ordinary world

Somehow I have to find

And as I try to make my way

To the ordinary world

I will learn to survive

Of course, everything I've said so far are not states to be attained once and for all, rather they are iterative, recursive processes. It's not like once I've ticked off one then that's it. Done and dusted. Never looking at that again. It's a spiral, it ricochets, it returns. It is an infinite game.

So after all that I have to find my way back to the ordinary world of my life and learn to survive.

Perhaps listening to this playlist on your downtimes can help you to remember to remember.

Much love and warmth,

Oliver