Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Look in the Mirror, Miami

I don't always write about politics or paradigm shifts or parasites or Miami traffic or human trafficking in Miami, but when I do, I go deep. 


STATE OF THE NON-UNION


As I sat on the bus last night, way past pumpkin time on my way back from the event I hosted, I thought long and hard about the faces I didn’t see. And I thought long and hard too, about the faces before me. A wizened black man looked exhausted. I offered him my seat. He politely refused.

There was very little turnout at my event last night. I’m not really bothered by that. In fact, I’m grateful. Many of you who planned to attend contacted me and apologized because of last-minute issues that held you back. I know you were there in spirit. And for those of you who did show up, I am glad we could share some great conversation.

But this isn’t really about my event. In fact, even the turn out at the restaurant was slow. It’s really about the state of the union, which isn’t a union by definition.

The glaring absence of people who were NOT interested in addressing the issue of transit in Miami in person just confirmed what I already knew in my heart. It’s really easy to complain and not be the change you want to be, isn’t it? It’s really easy to talk about these things without looking each other in the eye, simply embracing the reality that we have to do the best with what we have, which is precisely what best practices are all about – instead of playing victim, you play victor – the victorious, industrious, ingenuous, non-entitled leader of your own destiny.

And thank God we live in a country where we can still do that. My parents fled Communist Cuba where that shit didn’t fly.

Success Social Miami isn’t about wasting your energy on listening to the Republican debate or watching the basketball playoffs because at the end of the day, the only one who is going to give a shit about what happens in your life is you.

(Click on Success Social Miami to learn more about the event.)

BALLS TO THE WALL


Do you know what I think every time I see an angry post about politics? Do you know what I think about the parasites that are attempting to lead us as a collective called the United States – ‘cause there aint nothin’ united about us, folks – is that we are letting these people posing as leaders leech us inside and out when we ourselves could be the change we want to see.

Why does the word partisan even exist? Because politics seeks to divide and conquer, um, I mean control. The world is run by “testosterone-fueled animosity and aggression,” as one friend put it in conversation this morning. Yeah, I know, it’s obvious. So what are you doing in your daily life to deal with that?

The world as we know it – not the interior and infinite space of my interior, expansive, infinite being -- is run by everything that is not nurturing in favor of love and compassion. ISIS dudes raping women. Malala being shot because she just wants to go to school. African girls still getting cliterectomies. Historically, Mary Magdalene being called a whore. Orthodox Jewish women wearing wigs. Syrians being driven out of their homeland to survive. Muslim Afghan women being stoned to death. Oh, whatever! All humanity is just one “I’m better than you so I have to kill you and especially if you have a vagina” story. It’s the Hero of A Thousand Faces story.

On and on and on, where do I stop? Because it’s all about sex and power in the end. He who fucks an empty hole like a grunting, mindless animal rules.

Why do you think the porn industry is so successful and why women like Kim Kardashian laugh all the way to the bank playing off of the collective need for every guy to jerk off? Is this the real sexual power of womankind?

Nah. God if girlfriend only put her fake boobs and ass to good use but she’s fodder instead.
The sacred feminine nurturing spirit has been violated for centuries. What’s news?

Imagine if every woman in the world pulled a Lysistrata and decided to withhold sexual privilege until men stopped making war. You want pussy? Fighting each other aint the way to get it.
Think about it.

THE TRUMP WITHIN




Your body is also full of parasites, pathogens and microbial organisms that shouldn’t be in your body. There are literally real living things inside of you and here you are worried about the “ghosts” of your past, your Xanax-fueled anxieties and Prozac fantasies of wellness.

But chew on this, my darlings: Donald Trump, in the form of a worm, lives inside of YOU. Every time you even think of the Dumpster, he invades your consciousness. He represents the “mind dump” of America. You give him power. You feed on the culture of fear and lack.

This is what nourishes your soul? This is what you’re feeding yourself, believing in, taking it all in like a whore who’s being paid to give a deep throat blow job even though you know you’re just in it for the money?

Want to lose weight and look fabulous like I do? You need to cleanse yourself of the victim mentality, stop putting all your hopes and dreams on men (this includes Hillary with the symbolic phallus) who don’t really give a shit about your wellness or happiness. Politics is driven by ego. And you’re wasting your energy on that? We are literally being sucked dry.

In the end, the worms win and you will never look hot in Lulemon yoga pants because your gut is host to these critters AND your anger, frustration and hopelessness on which “they” feed -- voraciously. You’re an airbnb to everyone else’s drama – including the critters within – and the eons of DNA involved in these relationships. This is why my number one rule of weight loss is getting rid of toxic relationships in your life. It has nothing to do with the scale, or yoga pants, or wheatgrass juice cleansing regimens.

So, my friends, what toxic relationship do you have with politics and conversely, what little changes can you make in your life, day by day, to be the change you want to be? This was and always be the point of Success Social Miami.

I started Success Social Miami because I wanted to share this off-the-wall notion that you might find happiness even in the shittiest of circumstances. At the end of the day, you are at the helm of your own ship. You know, the pirate in me has to say that. Hoist the Jolly Roger when the going gets tough.

FUCK EVERTHING AND BE A PIRATE


Some dear friends told me that what I endured in the last years of caregiving could have driven others to suicide. Not me, folks. How could I worry about death when life was gifted to me? For better or worse, I chose this. Who the fuck am I to think money, mortgages, the “conventional life plan” and the diseases they foment are to define who I am? Was this the definition of me when the sperm met egg and I came to life?

Think about that. Who are you? What is your best practice being you?

Folks, all I could think of when I saw my mother dying of old age and Alzheimer’s in a hospice bed was not only the loss of her human body form in my life – the love we shared was never lost -- but also what illusions of fear were driving her reality. My reality.

What is at the helm of your heart, pirate? Who’s driving your ship?

You know what drives me? Me, the professional schlepper? The mantra from Course in Miracles. “Only love is real. Fear is an illusion.”

We – all of us – live in fear. Constantly. Even surrounded by material wealth, we are unhappy because we constantly “fear” the lack of things we think make us happy. Nothing makes you happy. You are already happiness manifest.

THE REAL TRAFFIC PROBLEM IN MIAMI


So yeah, as I sat on that South Dade Busway last night – which so many of you on #100greatideas complained “didn’t work” yet the bus was completely full and completely, seamlessly working past midnight, thank God, were you on that bus with me last night? – I thought about what someone told me that left me wrecked to the core.
My compassionate core.

Instead of talking about traffic, we talked about human trafficking. Did you know – don’t quote me on this as I need to fact check – there are over a dozen beds in Camillus House devoted to girls who are trafficked for sexual exploitation in Miami-Dade? That’s just the shelter, not the all-encompassing reality.

So, I’m going to talk about some shit no one wants to hear.

Yes, while you watched basketball and listened to the political parasites of the Republican party or whatever attempting to lead us as a collective, there were allegedly at least over a dozen young women in fear of their lives somehow breathing and getting by another day in hell in our own backyard.

Oh my, game changer. Traffic versus human trafficking. How’s that for an open mic roundtable night #100greatideas in Miami? Makes you feel like a dumb ass, doesn’t it? I certainly did.

Seriously. Miami-Dade government can’t even figure out how to handle toilet paper in the Metrorail stations and then there are women being whored, abused and tossed about like worthless garbage within miles of me. We are barbarians.

Oh, and we just celebrated International Women’s Day! What hypocrites we are to laude ourselves for our own vapid achievements (they seem vapid to me, sorry, I think you get my drift) – a point I brought up in my radio show with Tonya the other day – when somewhere already there is a baby girl born every minute in some Central American country who’s vagina is going to be the recipient of some man’s sperm even before her boobs perk up in puberty, spinning her into the cycle of unwanted, unplanned for pregnancy and poverty to produce yet another mouth to feed who’s going to end up repeating the same vicious cycle, only to risk her life in an epic schlep to America, and then only to be told by some political jackass that she’s a worthless piece of shit.

Nice job, humanity!

There are women in our own city living in terror and you are complaining about driving on the Palmetto? You are wasting your energy listening to politicians? Putting your faith in people who don’t even remotely resemble anything called a best practice?

Why are you voting for others when you can vote for yourself?

You can’t control what’s outside of you. But you can at least try to do something about what’s in you. Who you are in spite of everything. I had to type this out when I was talking to a friend this morning: “If everyone was more self-aware, the world would be a better place. Politics is a violation of you. When women are suppressed, society suffers. All the candidates are feeding off your fears.”

Shit is real. I tell it like it is. I always have.

No apologies.

Now for coffee and another schlep.

Believe.

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