[00:00] Why I’m telling this story

I’m no longer going to be recording here. This whole background scene, or whatever — we will see it no more. And I felt like this would be a good opportunity to share a few stories, and to share a little bit of my life story with you guys before I move from this place that has been my home for the last five years.

I was talking to a friend of the show last week, and we’ve talked a lot about his life, and he made a statement — like he doesn’t really know much about mine. I may talk about a lot of esoteric, philosophical, spiritual or meditative ideas here, but I don’t really go into my actual story so much. So I figured this might be a good opportunity to do it.

This is the end of an era for me. This is the end of my time here in this space, living with Melissa and Eli. And I figured I could just talk a little bit about what brought me into this situation, what the situation has been like, and what to expect moving forward — although I don’t know much about expectations. I guess maybe how I’m positioned as I move forward.

[01:34] Self Will Run

Leading up to moving into this house with Melissa, I was a rapper. I was part of a rap group called Self Will Run. Me and my partner P Suede — Patrick — we had made two albums over the course of two years, and we were planning to release our second album. We were planning an album release party at Center Stage in Atlanta. And then COVID hit.

So we ended up releasing that album by mailing it out to everybody and putting it up on the internet for free. It’s called Hope. That’s the name of the album.

[02:19] COVID gave me permission to exist

When COVID hit — this was 2020 — everything shut down, and it was like I was given permission to exist as I was, with myself, for the first time in a long time.

I don’t know if you’re new to the channel, but I’m a recovery guy. I’ve been involved in a 12-step fellowship and 12-step programs since before 2013, but I got sober in 2013. Leading up to COVID, I was actively trying to find a community, or a fellowship, or a place where I felt comfortable, and I just never felt comfortable anywhere I went. I was pretty much scared and anxious all the time. I found myself driving all over town trying to find a fellowship, or meetings, or a place where I could just be okay. I didn’t know how to be okay, basically.

And then COVID hit and all that stuff stopped. I was living in a small room at my buddy Stefan’s house — it was me, him, and one other roommate. Patrick was living with us. All of a sudden, all these ideas, all these things I thought I needed to do, or was doing up until that point, were no longer possible to do. And I was able to sit in the backyard and just exist.

I hadn’t known how to give myself permission to relax. I hadn’t known how to give myself permission to just be. COVID created that opportunity for me, and — I kid you not — it was one of the best times of my life. Just sitting in the backyard at Stefan’s house, reading Mystic Path to Cosmic Power, writing stuff, talking to myself, you know, like I’m doing now. Jogging. Doing whatever I felt like doing. I think I was doing a lot of Super Mario Kaizo at the time — playing these really difficult Mario levels and streaming. And I started going to Zoom meetings, and that was really fun, because I could go whenever I wanted and meet all these different people.

[05:11] The experiment: what if everyone is on my side?

Stefan asked me to mention something interesting about our experience living together. One of the things I practiced during that time: I used to get really annoyed with them. I’d get annoyed with the people in the house, I’d get annoyed with Patrick, I’d just get pissy.

And then one day I woke up and said — this is an interesting concept that I think anybody could try — what if everyone in my life, everyone that appears in my awareness, is appearing for my own best interest? What if the thoughts that are being shared, the suggestions, the influence of all the people and all the things in my life, were there to support and serve me and my own growth? Like they had my best interest at heart. What if that’s what life was?

I woke up that day and I pretended that’s what was happening. And I had one of the best days ever. All of a sudden, the things Stefan had that I used to get annoyed with him saying — I started seeing they were just really helpful and valuable. His insight, his perspective. And then I saw him in a different light. At that point I’d always kind of viewed him as a little-brother situation, and then I saw, oh wow, this guy’s actually way more of an adult than me in the way he thinks, and what he’s sharing is helpful.

And it was like that with all sorts of things. I saw that life seems to have an intelligence about itself that only gets prevented by my own limited perspective. So that little experiment worked wonders. Anyway, I just did experiments and weird stuff like that all the time, sitting in the backyard.

[06:51] Three weeks in a U-Haul from Boston to Portland

I ended up meeting a close friend of mine named Peter through a Zoom meeting I started with my buddy Reed. Me and Melissa had been on and off again up until that point, and then we were on. I went and drove her from Boston to Portland — she moved to Portland to do her first vet residency.

I helped her — well, I can’t say I helped her pack up her house. I sat there and pretended to be on my phone while all the movers packed up her house. And I’m not proud of this, by the way. And then I drove the U-Haul across the country.

That three-week period of driving the U-Haul from Boston to Portland in 2020 was maybe the most fun experience I think I’ve ever had. There are others that are coming to mind now that I say that — like me and Suede getting on the radio at 107.9 in Atlanta. We won a hip hop competition live on the radio, and we went to Waffle House afterwards in the middle of the city, and it felt like we were the kings of the city. That’s another good memory.

But I would say for depth, for length of enjoyment, and for the fact that it opened a portal to a life that I get to live today that I never would have imagined was possible — I’ve got to give it to Mel and the three weeks in the U-Haul. We went through the Badlands, South Dakota. We saw Mount Rushmore. We saw Crazy Horse.

[08:39] Shared Space and living entirely in my head

So I got her to Portland, but I’m still in this active state of self-involvement. That’s the best way I can describe what my life was like before I really started engaging with Peter. I was in a world of my own making. My mind was completely filled with dreams of what I wanted to do, how I would live, what I would create.

All while this is going on, I was also actively developing a social network called Shared Space. That had been in active development for a while, but it really picked up after we released the second album and the world got shut down. I called up Big Chris — he was the main investor. I don’t like using the word “investor,” because he was a friend, and he believed in what we were doing, more than just an investor. But he really did allow this project to take shape.

I called him and said, let’s really focus in on this, let’s see if we can’t push this a little further out, get it out in the world. It seems like the perfect time — everyone’s stuck in their houses and it seems like everyone’s going crazy but me. Like, why am I the happiest I’ve ever been but everyone around me is miserable?

So Shared Space was still in development, but everything in my life at that point — I lived in my head. I moved through the world as a means of accomplishing the goals and the dreams that I had envisioned for myself and had solidified in my own mind as being of utmost importance.

[10:17] The guy I swore I’d never talk to

I end up meeting with Peter because of an incident that happened. I’d already met him, and we were talking occasionally. The fun thing about Peter — this is a friend of mine, he’s been on the show, you guys might have seen him. He’s a golfer, he’s got his channel, Crony’s Corner, if you want to watch him. He’s a pro golfer.

But the thing about Peter was, I remember meeting him outside of a 12-step meeting in 2014, 2015. He came to my home group and he was standing outside. I remember what he was wearing — I can visualize it, but I don’t know anything about clothes or cars. He looked very well-to-do. Nice jacket. He looked like James Dean. He looked too cool for school. Standing there with his collar kind of popped up, smoking a cigarette, a very stern demeanor about him.

And I remember seeing him and thinking, I’m never going to mess with this guy. Like, there’s no way this is my type of person to interact with. Because normally at my meeting I was always greeting people, saying hello to people. And I said hello to Peter, and the way he responded was just so direct, so in the pocket and of him, that I didn’t know what to do with it. I was like, oh, well, I guess this guy’s not my type. And I didn’t think about it. I don’t think I saw him again — I might have seen him randomly at meetings around town, but never gave it much thought.

And come to find out that today, there’s three or four people in my life — he’s one of those guys. He’s the closest confidant in my life. Which I think is interesting, because I see that time and time again: when I notice that I don’t like someone off the bat, to me that’s a signal. Like, oh, that could potentially mean something. It could prove to be the opposite. There’s something in me that actively resists things that actually would help it, if that makes sense.

[12:28] Arrested for an expired tag

So I end up having this incident while living at Stefan’s house during COVID. I was driving home from work or somewhere — I was still working at the warehouse — and I got pulled over for an expired tag. Come to find out I had been driving on a suspended license. The tag had been expired, I never renewed it, I didn’t go register my car. And so the police officer arrested me and I spent the night in jail.

I bailed myself out, and I got out of jail and came back to Stefan’s house, to that tiny small room. I’m kind of a big guy — I’m 6’3″, I told recruiters I was 6’4″, but I’m 6’3″ and something. And the room was just a little bit bigger than this one. I come back there and I just crash. I just fall asleep on the bed.

[13:42] Everything was my fault

And I wake up, and it’s a beautiful day. I look at my body, I look at my surroundings, I get up, I sit next to my bed where my chair was, I’m looking out the window — and I realized every decision I’ve ever made in my entire life has led me here. Sober, just got arrested, living in a tiny house, no real opportunities in front of me. There were things I was working on, but this sense of dissatisfaction, this sense of anxiety.

I realized I don’t have anything to really call my own. Everything that I thought was important really only existed in my own head. My reality was, I hadn’t built anything in my life, really. And I saw that it was because of me. It was the way I thought, it was the decisions I’d made. And this was what my life was. I was probably 32 at the time — I’m 38 now.

[14:38] Calling Peter

And I called Peter in that moment. I said, hey man, I am deeply dissatisfied with the way that I am. I’m not responsible in any way, shape or form. Something so simple and so easy — an adult responsibility of just renewing a tag — I didn’t have the ability to do.

Step one is a recognition that you’re powerless over alcohol and your life is unmanageable. I realized I was powerless over my thinking. Powerless over my ability to make decisions. And I couldn’t manage my life, obviously. So I called him and said, man, I think I need your help, I don’t know what to do. And he said, let’s meet up.

I ended up meeting up with him every week for about six months. It started with going to his office and doing a vision board, and then I started going over to his house on Wednesdays. I used to do a podcast — I still do, this is a podcast, I’ve always done a podcast — but there was a series I did with him. Basically, when I would get ideas and want to talk to people, I just used the podcast as an excuse to do that. I used the podcast as a mechanism to continue my own exploration and my own sense of how to learn responsibility.

Really, I was meeting with Peter because I needed to know how to believe in God. I needed to know how to work with God. I needed to know how to surrender my will and my life over to the care of this power. I didn’t know how to do it, and I was seven or eight years sober at the time. But Peter did know how to do it. So I used the podcast basically as a tool, or an excuse, to get over to his apartment every week and ask him questions. And we recorded it, and all of those are available online on Inside the Mind’s Eye. You can listen to all of them, and they’re great. It’s great stuff.

[17:36] Six months with a guru

It was the first time I had actually met with somebody who had an experience similar to mine. An effacement. A kind of complete disintegration of the will, the ego. A complete surrender. A recognition of complete powerlessness.

I’d never actually encountered someone who had a mystical experience at that level, where you saw that you can’t drive anymore — that your life is no longer your business and you’re willing to turn over the keys. Peter had had that experience. And Peter was also very insightful with meditative and spiritual things, esoteric wisdoms, but he wasn’t in the weeds with it. It was all experiential for him. It was all lived. It wasn’t conceptual.

So he was basically my guru for like six months. I would just go over and ask questions and we would sit. All those things are recorded. Eventually I would go with him on Wednesdays, we would always go to hot yoga, and then we would do a talk at his apartment and I would record it and then publish it.

[18:16] The text that ended the Thailand trip

Through the course of that time, me and Melissa had been broken up, and we ended up meeting each other on an online meeting again. We haven’t been able to stay away from each other ever since we met each other all those years ago — 12 years ago, however long ago it was.

We were talking about taking a trip to Thailand. We had planned the trip, we were going to go. And she texted me one day while I was with Peter — we were doing a podcast — and she said, I don’t think this Thailand trip is a good idea. I’m just going to get my hopes up again, and it’ll just be too painful when it’s over. That’s basically what she said.

[19:55] Forget Thailand — move to Atlanta

And I think it was one of the few times I’ve actively made an adult decision. There are a lot of times where I’ve done damage to myself by trying to think for other people. But with that message I saw very clearly: if there’s a future with Melissa, it has to happen now, or it’s not going to happen. And we shouldn’t be playing around. We shouldn’t be doing this.

I talked to Peter about it and I was just like, yeah, I’ve decided. I want to try the whole thing with her. I’ve never lived with a girl. I’ve never lived with a partner.

I called her that night after I got done meeting with Peter, and this was very scary for me to do, because she could have said no. I didn’t know where she was really at with it. I didn’t know what was really going on. But I said — screw Thailand. Let’s get you here to Atlanta. Let’s move in together. Let’s have a family. Let’s actually do this. Because she had her son Eli — I’ve known Eli ever since he was this big on her bed at her old house.

And she agreed. She put in her notice at the Humane Society she was working at in Portland, ended her rent, and started packing and planning. And I flew to Portland, and I can’t say I helped pack. I showed up just in time to drive.

By the way — I’m actively packing up this house, and I’m doing way better than I’ve ever done in my entire life, you guys. I did all the boxes, I got them all transported. My brother helped, Melissa helped. Yesterday was crazy, I’m exhausted. Wait — maybe I don’t think I helped too much yesterday. But two days ago I was like, what can I do for help? Progress. Baby steps. I feel like I’m getting better. She’d know more than me.

[21:14] Death Valley, Vegas, and the drive home

But yeah, I showed up just to drive, really. And I drove us back. We drove down the coast of California and then across the desert. We went through Death Valley — the hottest place on earth, that dry desert place — which was really cool. Went through Vegas. She does not like Vegas. I like Vegas. I just like the scenery, I like the sprawling city, and I like thinking of Fallout: New Vegas while we drive through.

And then we continued on and we moved into this house. And we’ve been here for five years. It’s been wild.

[22:09] Stay-at-home dad, EverQuest, and the Faceless

There’s a lot of story here. She encouraged me to be a stay-at-home dad, and I agreed. I was working when we got here — we were staying in an Airbnb for like three weeks — and then Melissa found a job, and she makes way more money than I do. So once she got stable income, I went ahead and stopped working and became a stay-at-home dad.

And I kid you not, gentlemen — mostly gentlemen, and women — I spent a year and a half playing EverQuest, pretty much. I mean, I took care of Eli, got him to school, got him on the bus, did my best to tidy up the house. But I got to live another dream. Talk about some of the best times ever. It was getting to know Eli, learning his temperaments, wiping butts, taking care of showers, dad duty. Really getting to know him.

And then when he was at school it was World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot. I had a computer for the first time in a decade. Final Fantasy XIV. I had all these realms to explore and it was so awesome. I got to raid with the Faceless, I did some podcasts with the guys I met in our guild, and just had an amazing time.

And eventually it became completely unsustainable. And I think that’s where I’ll pick up with the next one, because we ended up getting separated, me and Melissa. So that’s where we’ll pick up when we come back. Hopefully I can do it before we leave this house, but I may continue it in the new house if I can find the time.

[24:24] The monk at the Grand Canyon

There’s some stuff I missed in what I just described. There’s a great story about when we were at the Grand Canyon during the move from Portland to here. There was a monk there and I had a kundalini-type experience.

I guess I’ll just tell the story real quick. This guy was there. He had the Bhagavad Gita and all these assorted Hindu texts, orange sannyasin robe. And Melissa’s like, oh, what’s that, and walks over to the table. I knew what it was, because I’m hip to all that stuff, and I’m just like, this is great, go talk to him. I didn’t feel called or need to talk to him at all.

Melissa scurries over, Eli starts running away, and Melissa runs from the guy as he’s handing her the Bhagavad Gita saying you can have this, just keep it, and she’s like thank you so much as she’s chasing Eli and running away.

And I’m standing there with the Sennheiser, and I’m looking at him, and I’m looking at his table of stuff, and I look at him and I say, hey — what you’re doing, what this is, is the most important thing to me. It’s the most important thing in my life. What we’re talking about here.

And he looked me dead in the eyes and he goes: yeah, that’s great, but you know, I’m a sannyasin. I chose to lead this life. But you have a family. And he motioned me to go with Melissa and Eli.

[26:17] Kundalini

It shocked me that that was his response. And I started walking away, down the path toward the edge of the Grand Canyon where people can overlook and see it. And this is the weirdest thing — this chill of energy started at the bottom of my spine, and grew up through my back, and expanded through the top of my head.

I lost all sense of time and space. I saw the void, or the nothingness, and the beingness in which and through which all material phenomena was dancing itself as blinks of light. And I was just in a state of effacement. My body is walking itself towards the edge of the Grand Canyon. Melissa and Eli are smiling, they’re happy. I see the vast vista unfolding in front of me of the Grand Canyon — and it meant nothing to me.

It was like seeing one of the most beautiful things and then recognizing that there’s no difference between that and this, and this pen. Everything was appearances in consciousness. Even the beauty of the vista of the Grand Canyon was meaningless. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but something was going on in my body that just shocked me. My eyes open.

[27:53] Get out of the car and go with him

We end up going back to the car. We get in the car — it’s me, Eli, her, and our three dogs. I was going to say her three dogs, but I guess they were ours at that time. I would have said her three dogs.

And we’re getting in the car, and it’s a tight compartment, all the stimulation, all these entities vying for my attention. And I was just like, I need to go back to the monk. I need to get back to the monk right now. Everything in my body was like: get out of this car, go talk to the monk, just humble yourself. Humble yourself before him and join him in his van for the next place he goes to talk about the Bhagavad Gita. Just go with him.

It was so funny, because that’s one of the moments I think about from time to time — of how active my mind is at resisting what’s best for it. My mind actively resists what’s best for me. And when I say me, I mean this body-mind, this person who I hope can act as some form of useful agent in the world. My mind is actively attempting to deter that from occurring.

So, being uncomfortable, being in that car, realizing my fate was sealed — and even the monk had said your path is with your family. His statement is what held me in that car. I was like, well, he told me this is what I’m supposed to do, and this is where I am right now, and I’ve just got to trust that. Wherever I’m at. I didn’t have to know this conceptually. I just knew I was panicking inside and it was extremely uncomfortable, and I just needed to bear with it. And I don’t know why.

Anyway, we continued the trip, and then we got back here. And I’ll continue the story on the next one.

[29:25] What’s next, and the end of Effing the Ineffable

Thanks for hanging out with me for this long. Thanks for being along for this journey.

I don’t know how often I’m going to be able to do videos like this. I want to try to keep doing them. It’s just so busy right now with my work and with the move. I’m having to pick up more responsibilities at work — my morning times are spent on QuickBooks and finance stuff, and planning and strategies, and a bunch of fancy words to make it sound like I’m important. And then I go do manual labor. And then also with Eli, getting him to the bus in the mornings. Just a whole bunch of stuff.

So I want to hopefully get on here and share some more stories. And I really appreciate y’all who’ve been hanging out up until this point.

We’re not doing the live stream anymore. This is just kind of bookkeeping stuff. There’s going to be no more Friday Effing the Ineffable. Me and Reed are talking on the phone regularly — we’re BFFs — the show just didn’t work. For now, or ever, probably. I don’t know. Both him and I get in our own ways in such different ways. We both have our issues. That’s really the main thing. We just don’t know how to work with people. I’m trying to learn how to work with people. Maybe I just don’t know how to work with my friends. I don’t know. But no more show.

And hopefully I’ll find some time sooner rather than later to continue this story, because we’ve got to go through the separation between me and Melissa, and what happened near the end of my excursion as a member of the Faceless in World of Warcraft and EverQuest.

[31:18] The making of Rocky

So thanks for hanging, thanks for being along for this journey so far, and I will see you on the next one. As the words of Bill S. Preston and Ted Theodore Logan say — Wyld Stallyns.

By the way, the new Rocky movie coming out — the making of Rocky — I think it’s coming out in November. It’s going to be awesome. If y’all don’t know the true story of how Rocky got made with Sylvester Stallone, it’s one of the most inspiring, epic stories ever. And they’re making a movie about the making of Rocky. So I highly recommend checking out that trailer, and just go look up how Rocky got made. It’s incredible.

So yeah — stay excellent, and we’ll see you on the next one.

[31:58] Outro

[Outro music — Alan Watts passage and verse from Self Will Run.]