William is out on that road.

"I just think with everything that's goin' on people just need a hug."

"What?"

"What do you mean what?"

"I don't know."

"I see people as a little lonely."

"Little?"

"I feel everything we are doing is looking for some sort of connection, no matter how distant it first seems."

"What do you mean?"

"Especially those that are wrapped up in their work, those who have used the pursuit of knowledge as a ruse. I just can't help but think that. I just see it."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. I just think a lot of people are sad. They know what they are looking for, but they just don't have a clue about the means. It's like they are driving without a map."

"Are you talking about yourself?"

"I am in a way. Least I'm aware of it I guess. Least I'm aware that I have been painfully confused. Lost in the stink of life, all while looking for just a little something beautiful. Just a little till it can turn into something bigger. Everything that I do is looking for acceptance. Looking to be back at what's finally familiar."

"Nothing here is familiar?"

"Nothing. Only when something on the outside sparks me in the right direction on the inside."

"Right."

"Connecting. Finally connecting is what a million different directions is doing just looking for one."

William is afraid.

"Only go with what's moving"

"What?"

"I got to go with what is moving on its own in my life. I cant try building cities."

"I think it would be tough to build a city."

"I only want to serve what's moving. I don't give a shit if it's negative. If it it is the only thing raising its hand in my life I want to give it attention."

"Negative?"

"Well if it is negative giving it attention--not ignoring it-- will eventually make it positive anyway."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm serious."

"OK."

"I'm tired of trying to create stuff. Scared of what pops up."

"What pops up?"

"Stuff. Things on their own. Anything that opens up in my life on it's own should be what gets all of my attention."

"What about the ladies?"

"What?"

"Nothin'"

"What?"

"So things in your life moves on it's own?"

"Yes. You can't hear it because you are afraid of the silence. You got to build as a distraction. You have to run out and create a diversion."

"I'm not afraid."

"I am. I'm afraid to act on my own. I will only serve what comes up."

"Ok."

"Then I can be absolutely sure."

Anthony is in charge.

"Goddamn."

"What?"

"My success inside a relationship is based on how honest I am."

"To me that is a rumor."

"Ah it's the truth."

"Why?"

"What do you mean why?"

"What does it mean?"

"It means I am in charge with how successful my relationship is going to be based on how honest and transparent I become. Increasing it means success."

"I will have to think about that."

"What?"

"Because it sounds like crazy talk. The kind of shit that will get your ass killed around here."

"I'm in charge of my own happiness. What more can I say."

"Ok."

"I have to be forthcoming. There are no books to read or no workshops to attend. I have to come clean and things will improve immensely."

"Like it's possible."

"It's possible."

You are drawn to people who give you an opportunity to play out a role that has value for you. It may be comfortable or uncomfortable, but it’s a role you value. You avoid people when you find yourself falling into a role you don’t want to play anymore. And you “outgrow” a relationship when you no longer want to play the role or roles you play in that relationship. In ego, there is no way to avoid the past.

William invites the uneasy in for lunch.

"I like looking for the uneasy. I invite it in."

"In your food?"

"No. When something makes me quaver; when something makes me uncomfortable I try not to spend time looking for ways to distract myself from it. I am almost initially exicited about the answer that could be hidden in it."

"Even though it is making you uncomfortable?"

"Yes."

"OK."

"It's like a clue."

"A clue?"

"Yes a clue. Can't you see that?"

"What?"

"What makes you uncomfortable is a clue that maybe you need to look at it closer."

"At solving it."

"Yes."

"OK."

"But you run out of it, don't you?"

"I work the problem."

"You resolve it right?"

"I get it resolved."

"You quickly move it out of your way. You through money at it, you make calls. You get through it with your ears and eyes closed."

"I do."

"I look at it. I stop and know that it is much more important than running through it."

"You're special arn't you?"

"I'm not."

"You are and it's not just your hat."

"The things that rise up and make me directly uncomfortable just gets me a little excited, you know?"

"Like cheveux noirs et courts."

"I feel special."

"I knew it."

"I feel like this is just for me. I look at how my heart is beating. This is just for me. How I handle it, how I calmly digest it, it turns into nothing terrible but something much more enjoyable."

"Huh?"

"What's uncomfortable, becomes much more rewarding if I just invite it in."

"Good afternoon."

Slowie doesn't want victimization by Hasbro.

"I struggle when all of my toys are taken away."

"What do you mean?"

"You always ask that."

"Yeah."

"I'm just like you who loves to marinate--bask, rather in victimization. I want to use it at a drop of a hat to further conceptualize my need for attention during someone else s need for clarity in a moment."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Of course I could be doing the same thing--at said moment, then we could easily cancel each other out."

"Well yeah, that is the case in all of my relationships, but what happens when you are aware of this while it is going on?"

"You bury it like a good Lutheran."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"I don't have anything else to do."

"Huh?"

"Self mutilation is my only past time."

"Harakiri. Yes. It is what brings all the boys to the yard. I play the victimization card because I like reminding people that I'm valuable. If they buy into my performance it can add fucked up years to an already fucked up relationship. Of course this is if I can't accuse someone of something either passively or with super strength. But I do use victimization as a last resort."

"I'm thinking you should stop talking."

"Yeah. Maybe. So I can see that you hate me...you hate me right? You're right I'm all fucked up. I don't know what's going on with me, I'm sorry."

"I don't hate you. I mean ...oh whatever."

"What?"

"You will struggle like me when you take away all of your little toys."

"We really don't know who people are, what things and situations are for, why we are here or how to correct things. Truly a great gift is the humility to say and mean, 'I wish to be comfortable with not knowing.' The second we surrender our limited experience of knowing, we are instantly relieved of our burden."

William doesn't like his personal space.

"I don't know what space is for."

"What?"

"Space."

"You mean final frontier space?"

"No. I mean when I needed it in my life."

"Time to yourself?"

"I tried to protect it vehemently. I created relationships around it."

"What do you mean?"

"By making sure the relationships I had were in conjunction with the 'need for space' mentality."

"What?"

"People who needed space as well."

"I'm spacing out."

"What?"

"That shit is only natural that people will need down time."

"Sure, but this shit can not be architected. What I discovered is that, this is already built into relationships where you seemingly have no space."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying it."

"I don't think so."

"Space or down time is mythological. The whole relationship is your life; the space or down time I found wasn't as valuable as I thought. I wasn't really protecting anything that was productive. In most cases I sat around holding an empty block of time just for the principle of it."

"You don't just go to the museum by yourself huh?"

"Like you go to the museum."

"Well."

"You're always here."

"You're right. I'm just sayin'."

"Alone time allows me to get a better perspective on what is happening in my life, even if it's walking through the museum or taking a personal trip. But what I'm saying is it should not be cordoned off. It should not be considered a personal life within a personal life. There are no personal lives. You have one life, and you open yourself to allow the light of this life and all of its experiences to shine everywhere. Your down time is there to boost further commitment to the fact that all your life is a cabaret. All of it is open to interpretation."

"I like eating here alone."

"I know you do, and it has served us well."

One of the fastest ways to surrender is to accept reality as it presents itself--not to deny or resist it, because if we do, we are in conflict with ourselves and the Unified Will. We waste so much energy on defending, denying, and resisting What Is. Instead we could soften our resistance and invite the situation to teach us and lead us to what we really want. Any challenge we perceive is purely a vehicle to learn more about who we are and about our Purpose.

William wants to control everything from right here.

"I want to control everything from right here."

"You mean these calories?"

"No."

"You were looking at your plate."

"I wasn't."

"OK."

"I'm doing so much. I'm holding so many things together."

"What?"

"I'm working my life."

"Doesn't that make sense?"

"What?"

"You act as if....I don't know..."

"I'm supposed to work it."

"Yeah."

"Is there anything wrong with trying to figure out what the hell is going on? Or how I can get it right?"

"Get what right?"

"This life. How can I make it work."

"It's working. You have a roof over your head....you have almost all of your teeth."

"It's not working. Don't for one moment think this life is working, there is anguish in people's lives. There is pain. There is tons of uncertainty."

"I can guess that."

"I feel like it's only working because I have to work it."

"That's the point."

"It's a working that's grimy, bemired. You know? It's a working that just pays the interest, never the principle. A totally useless kind of living."

"You act as if there is a plan B. Well I guess you could go live on a mountain and count birds."

"That's not a plan B. That's more of the same if I'm not attracted to it. I'm attracted to being here."

"With me today."

"Right. I have to figure it out here."

"Figure what out?"

"Have you been listening? You don't have to do anything but sit there and wait for your warm glass of milk. I'm talking about me. This isn't enough. Paying the interest, paying with malaise. I want to control things from the already. From right here I'm not working. From here I control the results. I'm driving."

"You are insane."

"Yeah, but do you know for sure that you're not."

"Maybe, but least I got more friends."

William wants to say something from a better place.

"She needs projection as comfort."

"What?"

"She needs you to complain, interrogate. She needs you to be more than irritated for her to feel at home."

"I don't think that's the case."

"It's the case. Being contemplative, accountable about your thoughts is just not right for her. She needs a left hook with words as if it was her favorite blanket that she curled up on the couch with."

"You can't be serious."

"I can be."

"OK."

"It doubles for compassion. It is like touch. It is how people see."

"See what?"

"Well it allows people to get from one moment to next. It can be a tiny comfort till they get to the next painful moment."

"What do you think?"

"I don't want to throw a fucked up life preserver. I want to hold my assault. I want to wait till I make sense."

"This will piss people off."

"What?"

"That quiet."

"I want to wait till I am inspired to be more compassionate in thought. What I say has to come from a better place."

"Is it that easy?"

"No. It's easier to throw out the fucked up life preserver. The one with holes in it. The one that floats you off towards the next fucked up situation."

"OK."

"I just want what I have to say to come from a better place."

William is looking for the hard way out.

"I figure that trying to put it together is the problem."

"What?"

"Putting it all together."

"Putting what together?"

"That thing."

"What?"

"These pieces do not go together. Least they don't go together perfectly--nowhere near perfect, matter of fact. They finally fit together like round pegs in square holes and then it somehow works without your help at all."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well our job is to stay out of the way. That is doing something, now that I think about it."

"What?"

"I'm talking about what goes on in our life. It seems to be floating all around me, like huge pieces of a puzzles that seem to automatically get me involved in trying to piece them together."

"Makes sense."

"You know what's interesting? The pieces all fit. They all join, but that's the fucking problem, they are not suppose to. Chaos is really what's there, and needs to be navigated by you not trying to piece it together. Your effort fucks it up."

"That makes sense."

"It does?"

"No."

"I feel set up when I go back in there and try working a so called problem in my day. I do my thing of thinking about something, sizing up the problem and reaching a resolution that will allow me to be comfortable for a few hours until something else bothers me, or that puzzle comes undone. The pieces of my life that fit together is smoke and mirrors. It's a fucking joke. Don't you understand?"

"Huh?"

"When it really works the pieces of my life will come together in a way that looks incongruent to the naked eye. Outsiders will not be able to see how that is going to come together, and will file you away as an idiot. They will have no choice but to think your methods are insane. They will see that what makes sense to the naked eye fits, and will even try to fit it together themselves, because people love easy puzzles."

"What is my method?"

"Your method is to not do anything right away. The doing something is the problem. You will see pieces that work perfectly together and you shouldn't do a damn thing. You should sit on your hands. As you wait beyond the so called easy answers that appears; the ones people will scream you take. The real answers will begin to materialized if you wait. They will be ushered by your gut feeling. They will be undeniable. Your method is to try this next thing."

"You're always looking for the hard way out."

"It eventually becomes the easy way."

Lanvin trusts joy.

"I trust joy."

"Ok."

"While most people just like staying on the ground."

"Should I even ask?"

"God, it is so much easier. Just afraid of getting up in the air."

"What do you mean?"

"We like being racked. We like being really really close to suffering so we don't have far to go as we roll out the appointment book of our day. No need to fall in shit when we are in it. Joy is what we are really so uncomfortable with. It is where anxiety gets all over our ass. We are paranoid. A luxury of the spirit makes us increasingly nervous."

"Life is suffering I heard somewhere."

"Life is purging. It is cleansing"

"I need to take a bath."

"Staying in the air is tough. Staying there, in things that are going very right and not feeling guilty is tough"

"What?"

"I know, right? But jubilance is the enemy--you see. It is what can keep you up at night. It is unknown and unpredictable. Joy wrecks us, because we feel ill prepared and undeserving, but the craziest thing is, there are many more moments of it than suffering. The only reason there appears to be more pain is because of our continued resistance to joyful moments."

"So you say I like the ground"

"You like the ground. You hug it. I hug it at times. We don't have too far to fall, things could be worse, but we are always close to it"

"Maybe so"

"Peace and joy is much more common though."

"Ha."

"It is."

"Ok."

"You don't believe me?"

"I just like that you believe it."

"I just trust Joy."

Nicholas isn't just looking cute.

"You have to get your hands dirty."

"What?"

"You have to get your hands dirty when it comes to life. You have to get down in there. You have to stop looking cute."

"What?"

"You can't sunglass your way. You can't sarcast your way through life. You can't hide."

"Sarcast?"

"Or witty your way."

"What?"

"You have to participate. You have to show up. I mean...this is what I discovered."

"Huh?"

"I'm just saying."

William the lobbyist wants to know what are words worth.

"I'm tired of talking."

"I'm sure that will serve me well."

"All of this carbon dioxide in the world is starting to bother me. I feel just like news television, magazines, and books, that I'm always trying to persuade. Shape people into my perspective when we talk. That is the only truth, getting them to nod their head. The only drive. Everything else doesn't matter."

"Depends if you are on to something."

"What?"

"I can be herded if I like what your life looks like."

"Say that ten times fast."

"Especially if you are a lobbyist for peace instead of fuckupness."

"Regardless of what your saying, I'm tired. I'm tired of talking. I'm tired of all of the words."

"I don't believe you. But words are antiquated to you. These other sources needs us to nod our head. You hate words because you want us and yourself to understand without them, and that is what frustrates you. But you are still driven."

"Maybe, but I don't want them to to belong to me."

"That's it."

"What?"

"Isn't that what a lobbyist does? Work for a special interest."

"You are finally saying something of worth."

"I'm more than a pretty face."

"Back to the fraudulent words."

"...real suffering comes from clinging to a life that has nothing to offer us."

-the mentor within

William wants to surrender.

"I need to be healed. I need to be cared for."

"You?"

"I found that all of the relationships I've been in, and all the experiences I've had were conducted in some sort of mental war zone. We carried scars, shrapnel from so many other past experiences."

"I would suggest that what you are saying is laden with 'dramatics' "

"No."

"Ok."

"Can you imagine trying to have a relationship in a war zone? How do you two hold your relationship together?"

"I don't know."

"You hold it together. But that's just it, you hold it together. You don't expand. You don't breath. Something outside of you disguised as your hidden fear could come in and ransack it at anytime, and you have to be ready. You have to be prepared. In the meantime you pass time talking about your scars of the past; your past wars."

"That sounds bleak."

"It is. We need someone to care for us. We are coming to relationships from a war, and we are battle tested for a coming one."

"It seems."

"Doesn't feel to be out there when someone really cares for you; when someone hugs you and means it. Seeing you as not a soldier but innocent. It doesn't happen when you just forgive yourself."

"You think it's that simple."

"Yeah I do. I just wanted to know what I was fighting--which is nothing, and what I was resisting--which is myself. I wanted to surrender, and that is where I see that I am wounded. Deeply. Puncture and bleeding. I'm tired and I give up and demand a peace. I need to be healed. To let it in. To stay unprepared to the elements. Stay fucking unprepared for once."

"OK."

"I need to finally relax."

"Sounds serious."

"I just need to be cared for."

Save your airfare and forgive.

-arten

"You're television incarnate, Diana. Indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You're madness, Diana virulent madness."

-Max Schumacher (William Holden)

Network (1975

screenplay Paddy Chayefsky

Slowie is romantic

"Who knows how to conduct a relationship."

"Huh?"

"My heart was broken in the early 90's. Romance was beat out of me, and because of that at 22 I started acting like my parents. I held everything, and digested till I couldn't recognize myself. I then got really serious and rid myself of playfulness, imagination and sensation. I even got married. Now I am like a kid in my early 40's, emotionally paralyzed, sexually immature, with a generation below us that gives out blow jobs like handshakes. I am trying to find myself."

"I should try the fish."

"After my first 15 years of ruin relationships, I decide to create Frankenstein ones."

"You sound angry."

"I'm not angry."

"You sound it."

"But I'm not."

"Ok."

"I'm just saying that I don't know anything about conducting a relationship. I don't have any idea about sex, romance and how love powers any of it. I'm mad as hell and I can't take it anymore."

"So what does that mean?"

"Like it is that simple."

"It must be if you are looking for a window to scream out of."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"No."

"OK."

"I don't know about you, but I don't know what I'm doing. I feel absolutely crazy. I feel uneven, like I am completley made up and I just need to say 'uncle' and my real life will begin."

"I was just thinking that this morning."

"right."

"OK."

"Can't you see it?"

"With you?"

"I can't trust you."

"Ok."

"But you know what? Romantic movies have lied to me. As soon as I got my period I have spent the rest of my life looking to understand what love is. After I was hurt time and time again I Frankenstein that shit. I piece together surrounding relationships to serve aspects of my desire. I fed my hollow self with these pieces. I built a golden fucking calf to love and sat with a ripped bra in front of it."

"Frankenstein?"

"I took my Frankenstein out to meet my parents. This hideous thing I called love, this thing that kept me just functioning. I half--assed myself. Can't you see that?"

"It's not like that."

"It is. I bought into some fucked up script and I'm sexually stunted. I can't feel. I have know idea who I am. These movies lied to me. I chased love based on their prescription and found a horror picture. I can only trust myself. Myself."

"So then you are angry."

"I'm not angry, but I believe I'm mad."

"Insane."

"Yes."

"Ok.

"I believe romance is alive and well. It is powered by love, and I can only trust myself for it."