Hello again, my fellow readers and sojourners into the wonderful world of fantasy and science. Its Brian Joseph Johns here and I'm looking to follow up a couple of posts I recently took offline, though not for any reasons to do with redaction or back-stepping on my expression, because that is definitely not the case at all.
In today's world, especially for those who are of some renown or infamy for one reason or another, usually to do with their performance arts, their creative endeavors or their outspoken views, and certainly more often than not, all three combined, when we try to express ideas that are coming from our heart and very much within the realm of sincerity (I'm one of the few who don't regard sincerity as a "sin"), to clarify ourselves in the midst of the chaos and noise around us (much of it intentional), at the same time as we're expressing it, we're dodging the chaos that arises as a sort of feedback, like speaking into a microphone that's way too hot on the mixing board, and being picked up by the stage monitors? This kind of feedback though is conscious and a choice by those who have chosen to pervey chaos as their social contribution to the fabric of social reality.
Most people who are familiar with it, especially professionals, have learned to accept it and have honed their ability to express with the impression of sincerity, while keeping their statements distant and detached enough to protect themselves. They're pros. They realize that its part of the nature of what they've chosen to do for a living, so rather than conflict it, they navigate around it. Something that I find to be very worthy of respect and admiration, but in all honesty, its the farthest from my approach to life and this world of renown and infamy.
When I spoke in the two most recent posts, I spoke a balance between saving my own face, and the faces of those whom I'm trying to reach in a sincere manner without triggering the gremlins into attacking them, for lack of a better metaphor.
You know as well as I do, that a most vocal and aggressive percentage of the audience in the vicinity of 5% to 10%, are only watching, listening or reading, because they believe that the people who have the courage to speak up in front of a crowd, don't have their own consciousness, are just puppets of other people who have real consciousness, or are simply mirrors whose better aspects are only a reflection of that 5% to 10% of their audience who believe that kind of nonsense. For artists and other creators, their first lesson in life is most likely one that hardens them up enough to overcome that barrier of the kind of people who are in this business because they like to express their heart. They've found a way to deal with it amicably, and without confronting it directly. I on the other hand, have for whatever reason, chosen not to bend or break to it, and never to allow it to gain its due, because honestly, its due nothing. More proof that those other artists and creators who get onto this stage, are very admirable, especially compared to my attitudes in this regard, though in my defense, I'm just as protective of my own audience minus that 5% to 10% who make up the most vocal and chaotic part.
Sometimes, that 5% to 10%, can have an impact upon your life that adds up to quite a bit more than their sum, at the cost of your moments of life, and over the last twenty to thirty years, that effect has only grown considerably. That 5% to 10% nowadays is the most vocal and aggressive part of an audience, and many who live that life on a stage that is presented before the audience and have seen that change, will know exactly what I'm talking about. Kudos to them however, for being true professionals and keeping their couth and dignity through it all. They're truly worthy of the adoration of that other 90% of their fans, amongst whom I number.
So, my statement about being someone who is somewhat mysterious, and in the public eye, though largely obscured by controversy or even just the pure simplicity of life's tapestry, each of us finding our way into places and situations that somehow challenge us in the most frustrating of ways, and the fact that there is a woman (or two) who is of some wealth and fame, who might have in a roundabout way nodded in my direction, though without the pressure to follow through, but rather in a "welcome to the circus" sort of fashion.
Just from knowing this life and having become accustomed to it for two decades now, but never achieving the kind of financial success I'd hoped, but certainly having arrived at a sort of infamy and underground sensation, though not as someone experiencing the life experiences of someone else, and believing it to be my own (that group lays with the 5% to 10% of narcissists). A sort of life philosophy that arises from people who've seen the movie Blade Runner, and quickly discover the metaphor between replicants as being false people who remember other people's lives and believe those memories to be their own, and then use that realization to subjugate the people they classify in that way. NPC syndrome as they call it nowadays. I don't think that was Philip K. Dick's intent, for his book: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to be weaponized in that way, any more than J.D. Salinger didn't intend for his book: The Catcher in the Rye, to be a significant aspect of the psychology of the man who shot John Lennon. For these authors to watch important social and philosophical insights they provided us with, to eventually become part of some monstrous perversity a great distance from where they'd intended them to be. Perverse, meaning, their having strayed from the guiding light their authors might have hoped for them. Its hard to justify the darkness of shadow work, even in words, when murder and death is involved, despite the fact that I truly believe we learn from both our darkness and our light.
My impression and experience of this awareness, of my place amongst some of the people I've alluded to, in my recent posts, was not meant to belittle them, as if I was somehow saying that women with money do not, and are not capable of having a heart, because they very much are, and most who are in that position have been hardened up by life to be able to handle the pressures required to maintain that kind of an empire. So many people employed by your resources, so long as you're still the marketable product you've long since become.
Even in modest situations of millions, that kind of pressure, and you begin to realize that you aren't the tyrant at the top, crushing under foot those fortunate enough to be in your presence and employ. You're riding a wave whose energy and momentum remains as long as you're marketable. The people employed beneath you, are a part of that wave, and you're doing your best to figure out where its going, and to make your next move marketable so as to maintain that momentum, and the jobs of all the people employed by you as the product. They know that, and I know that its lonely. Very lonely. And the thing that lonely people want most of all, is to find someone who they believe understands them, that they can get together and share that, and for the rest of the world to disappear for a few hours, while they enjoy the fact that they weren't alone as they thought they were.
That fantasy grows in every single one of us who experiences or understands that aspect of these things, and it can become our Achilles heel, especially in the hands of people who'd find their way in on that same fantasy.
Part of our journey was becoming familiar with the fact that there would be people who'd play us that exact way. That our longing in the long run, if we weren't careful, would become our greatest weakness.
I'm glad I took the time to clarify this today, because the way I left it yesterday, was in words that were halfway trying to address exactly what I am saying today, and at the same time, doing battle with the forces of chaos, and doing my best not to become fierce about it. Once you lose that control over your emotions, you're biasing the people that you least want to have any bias at all. So yesterday, I was dealing with both sides, and trying to get to the heart of the matter, and ended up making a mess of it.
I think that the greatest gift of realization, has been the realization that even though it has been a very long time since I've had the chance to express my heart in a sensually physical way, that realizing there are others who have come to this same realization, but maybe at great distances, that I'm not alone, and that neither are you.
Before climbing this mountain, I was fortunate enough to have had the love of my life, more than once, and my sense of admiration for women in that position, who are riding the crest of a wave as visionaries, trying to determine where the market forces will be in a decade in order to best preserve their legacy and the employ of those whose made a living under their vision. To know that we share the same kind of loneliness, is to realize that we're not alone at all. What I'd give to make the rest of the world disappear for a few hours for us to be alone and together and able to express that.
I'm sure that we have fond memories like that, with others who've truly held our hearts in theirs, and it isn't dementia to entertain these ideas in order to stave off the loneliness of this often bizarre world the future has become. Or to deal with those who believe us to be their mirrors. That somehow all of our creativity spawns forth every time they send us an email or text message, as if that somehow contains their soul and creative energy, that is making us capable of such things. That's real narcissism by the way and I'm sure that the people I'm trying to address in a positive and helpful manner certainly can relate. You create something, then ten minutes later you get an opportunistic email from omeone that almost never speaks to you or contacts you, conveniently timed after you've created your work, and sent to you just before you release it. Its kind of like how dogs pee on trees to mark their territory, so that other dogs know whose territory it is? They want other people to believe that your creativity originates from the dog that pees on you just before you release something.
My point yesterday was not that money makes one heartless. My point was that sometimes when we're seeking something we believe we desperately need, we're making ourselves vulnerable. Not necessarily to a solitary person who'd exploit the situation for their own financial gain, but to that 5% to 10% who in addition to their abilities of chaos, are able to look into and read situations (and our psyche like mind readers), enough so to become the trojan horse that exploits us or even destroys us.
The Odyssey is very much a current subject given the controversy and fanfare of the film, and I couldn't think of a better way to express the ideas that I believe are at the heart of the Iliad, though I'd prefer to stay away from colour symbolism (most would automatically and reflexively imply blue white in association with the Odyssey, given its Greek origins and blue white can and often is socially weaponized in so many ways). I'm sticking with my Shhhh! Digital Media colours which are visible at the header on the top of this web page.
How many people can you count in your own circle, who truly believe that you are you? How many of those other people believe that you're just some mechanical prop that looks like the person of your own history, but is nothing more than a thing rather than a human being? That believe that you're some automaton that produces content every time they send you an input, believing themselves to be the source of everything you do. All those people who call your number, none of whom you know, and leave no message, send an email after never speaking with you, thinking their imprint upon you is somehow marking you as their property or as your source. Narcissists I mean.
I remember having a girlfriend whom after we consumated our relationship on New Years, she went on to produce poetry and artwork, but I recall never once regarding myself as the source of it. It was more like I was fortunate to be a part of something with her, because she would have created that are with me, or without me, but maybe not expressing the exact same sentiments. Most flowers bloom not because of us, but regardless. We're fortunate if we're near them when they do. Some people though, they look at creativity, inspiration and output very possessively. As if the inspired creators throughout the world wouldn't function without them as a source. How can anyone truly appreciate someone else, if all they see in others is themselves.
You're not alone, and this is a war I intend to win, and without violence. I have an innate ability to piece things together very quickly, empathically and intuitively. I find it cruel and unimaginable that circumstances within one's own head and heart, could produce such people as these 5% to 10% who see us this way. I say their head and their heart, because people such as those can in no way that I know of, have a spirit or soul, or mana, or essence, or whatever you prefer to call that aspect of us that goes on.
The only thing that I truly know, is that we're not alone and the proof of that is that we don't look at each other as if we're mirrors. We look at each other and see our true nature. Our uniqueness. I purposely drop clues to say hello every once in a while, and I catch them when you do too. It makes being part of the audience just as fun as being a creator.
Updates
Keep watching the website for the latest updates. They'll be on their way soon, but I can't promise exactly as to when. I can say that there will be a few of them coming soon.
PS:
Alicia Westin - Dinner at Kelsey's in 1999/2000. Very attractive, and modestly confident. Perpetual smiling eyes. I think the only time in my life that I actually made the proposal for a relationship. Many good memories, and a few painful ones for which I'm responsible.
Helayne Ying - Velvet Underground goth/alt.rock dance club in 2001. She arrived with big, professional hired security, who cleared the floor so that she and I could dance. Her first words to me: "You need to dance!", wearing a long white dress and with that unforgettable smile as she dragged me out onto the floor, her security keeping watch for us. Five years later, we met again under very different circumstances. She invited me to dinner on New Years, and wrote books filled with poetry about our time together there beyond. An Opera singer.
Myung Chung-Ae - A Korean woman with whom I had a growing friendship. She was developing a business plan and I lent her my laptop several times to develop her plan. One day we went out for coffee together, and we ended up in a conversation in which she gave reasons it would be good if we enjoyed each other's company in private, and I gave reasons it wouldn't be good. She won thankfully, and we began a secret and heated fling that lasted several months.
Aikiko Tanaka - Asahi Sushi, back between 2001 and 2003 where a Japanese waitress worked with whom I developed a friendship during business dinners I attended after work, even meeting her several times thereafter in a friendly capacity. Secretive. Attentive. Very intelligent and attractive. A cherished friendship that I wished could have been more.
Real memories for which I'm forever grateful. Painful however that all of these women were stalked by the group that plagues me, and in more than one case, were the reason we parted ways and for their safety.
I'm a secular atheist agnostic that leans toward Buddhism and Taoism and now to a degree, Shintoism. No blue church or brown church for me. Certainly, no blue roses either. I'm not a Zionist of any form, but I'm not against the rights of the Jewish or Muslim community. Most Zionism is about creating the casus belli for procuring land from other nations, or as a form of racial superiority over other cultures.
I'm Canadian by the way. I've never lived in the United States. I think that living anywhere likely has its benefits and challenges though, however the extremity to which they're apparent is definitely bound to their human rights code, their statutes and laws and how well they're protected in society, and more often than not, knowing the difference between when to enforce the spirit of the law or the letter of the law.
I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.
I'm Canadian Welsh, with European ancestry. I don't have brown eyes, I don't have blue eyes. My name is not Trent, though Trent Reznor is pretty darn awesome. We share an instrument and extensive history with MIDI and samplers in common.
I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.
