The website is up and it's time to send it in to NFT showroom to try and get whitelisted. Now done and they are super on it, to be clear 馃憖
This is an important conversation though. It's a big 'un and this makes it even easier to procrastinate. About [meta] Verse
What do I want to say, exactly? There's so much to discuss. And, some days, I wonder if I should even bother saying anything anyway.
Words are only words, after all.
I sit on the stairs, just outside my front door, in the sunlight and breathe in the landscape around me.
This place makes me want to forget about the world and just be in the now permanently.
Why should I bother fighting the good fight anymore? And what is the good fight anyway? How are we to know when so much of our perspective is skewed by our own fragile sense of "self" and subsequent fear of "annihilation"? And the murkiness of our own Shadow self.
We've made ourselves the center of the universe. We still believe we are even though we eventually agreed Galileo had it right all along.
But we've yet to shift our focus from this being "true" of our "selves".
That quite brilliant saying, "Keep it simple."
I've carried this with me, on my journey away from the groups that first shared it with me, in my search for lasting freedom and always avoidance of those "little boxes made of ticky-tack".
I thought it was freedom from addiction I was searching for all those years ago...
But my "addiction" was only an effort to alleviate some symptoms I was experiencing because I was unable to be my authentic self.
Keep it simple, they say.
So eventually I did.
But only when I found myself, accidentally, in the position of not having many options to choose from.
It was life. Or death.
Life meant speaking and walking my truth in full.
And here's the thing...
It wasn't even my own life I was fighting for and if it was I never would have fought for anything at all.
Not as hard as I did and not for so long that I was, in most ways, "annihilated".
Nope. I would've chosen to not "rock the boat", to slink back undercover into my completely ignorant concept of my compassionate Self.
I would have chosen to be the bigger more fearful person.
I thought I was spiritual but not religious, you see.
I had no fucking idea what actual spiritual practice looked like and no frame of reference to work from, other than to assimilate and mimic what seemed acceptable or even cool at the time.
Serious and ancient philosophical concepts.
All the nice bits of some of them now in a new mixed bag, for a new generation too scared to say fuck religion in full and too lazy and entitled to actually commit to any kind of discipline either.
So we reached (or were fed) a compromise.
We began to mimic modern translations and interpretations by pop gurus. Or only by our "selves". Even then only half read online and completely taken out of context.
No dedication or effort of formal practice necessary. Nobody to answer to. Not even the modern gurus then. Or ourselves.
How convenient in an age of convenience.
We could not even practice anything either then. Not even the half baked, already wrapped portions we misappropriated. All the grittier but more nutritious parts out of the mix. Now completely ineffective and entirely misunderstood.
What could possibly go wrong? Or, I guess, I should say...
what who could possibly go "right".
More bizarrely. It was my "addiction" that, ultimately, resulted in my "recovery".
And, still more synchronistically, the events that unfolded to bring all of this "shadow" into the "light"...
and so actually heal me in full...
were an exact imitation of the events I'd suppressed that were causing my mental distress and addiction in the first place. The exact things I needed to address to heal my trauma. And these events occurred because of circumstances completely beyond my control.
All I did, to get the ball rolling, was ask why, start researching and finally begin to speak my truth.
And stick to this despite the reactions of the people and environments around me.
Truth.
Just that.
Only that.
Even when it was used against me.
Even when it made me look "bad".
Even when it alienated people.
Even when it hurt.
Even when I was scared to do it.
And no. I'm not a saint. But I'm also not a sinner.
I was only an "addict" and addiction isn't rational. An addict will continue with behaviours despite the negative consequences or even possible annihilation, you see.
And so...
it was my addiction that lead me to the point, and beyond it, of any fear of death itself.
But that's another part of the story...
of a book that may never be written I've lost interest in writing.
I start digging around the internet of amazing things for content for the [meta] Verse project.
It's a great idea and I can't quite wait to release it.
Well... I think it is anyway. Some folks are going to think it's rubbish and that's expected. And respected.
Of course.
聽
I've been suspecting, for some years now, that the Powers that Be initiated the "Love and Light" movement in a blind panic when folks began to wise up to the illusion of Capitalism, figure out that the (not only) American Dream was rigged and began to rail against pretty much everything.
The angry youth...
And so...
a sudden revival of "spirituality" was born and we all became so compassionate that we began to turn the other cheek to pretty much everything. Valid fears, anger, frustration and rebellion became pathologized as socially "disordered" and we learned to repress anything "negative" as "bad".
Ah... Love and Light.
Possibly the biggest fuck up for our social evolution in the 21st century.
What a brilliant way to soften us up. To prevent us from seeing Truth. To avoid even our own "Shadow" and, thus, deter any serious personal growth and levelling up proper. And so deter us from taking possibly relevant action.
Lulled to sleep by Love and Light.
That is very, very clever indeed if it was done intentionally, huh?
Yet another thing, among almost everything, that I guess we'll never know for sure.
It's May 2023 around here today. Written last month and being released now...
I'm working on [meta] Verse at the moment and am finding it pretty interesting. There's lots of activity because of it. Even when there isn't.
I've learned, in my foray into more activism-y conversations, that resounding silence is often when things have reached people most effectively. Made them pause to think a while... or recoil in fear. Which is why we kind of have to keep trying to have these conversations in the first place.
But some may pause to think while.
And that's more than enough success for anyone making art. Especially in such a desensitized, high speed, endlessly busy world.
聽
The same thing happened when I began to share alternative perspectives and information on mental health, you know.
The uneasiness and awkwardness was palpable through the wire. A fearful blanket of silence that I wasn't healed enough to deal with back then. I took it all so very personally. But I stood my ground. And over the following years it became a comfortable conversation happening all over and everywhere despite me.
I don't claim this to be my doing.
It was all of the voices who were courageous enough to have the conversation. And the dam broke in under four odd years.
Today I've been medication free for going on over four years despite being told I'd probably have to take medication for life.
Recovery is possible.
But only by doing the work.
This is my truth.
This is the result of me finding it behind all that stubborn focus on Love and Light. This is my new understanding of the concept of love and light.
聽
Love = total acceptance of all and of everything
Light = seeing all of it and everything all inclusively
聽
But I've been called extreme. Thing is...
I don't think this stuff works as well as it can (and does) unless we go all the way with it.
This is my truth.
This is my truth in action instead of only words, words, words.
And the truth, as it turned out, really did set me free in the end.
Imagine a book that starts halfway through and begins with an ending.
But I think this is a good place to start. I mean... it's where I am today and learning isn't linear and neither is understanding.
And even Truth can be mutable, as it turns out.
Depending on circumstances and knowledge.
Because, if you really want all that love...
then you gotta love it all for real.
聽
And if you really want all that Light...
then you can't be afraid of the dark.
And you should never, ever be afraid to be curious, open-minded and courageous enough to embrace all of it.
As it is. 鉂わ笍
Dedicated to my younger humans. Wish I'd figured this out sooner.
I'm my opinionated opinion.
Of course.
But also...
in my experience.
Me and My Shadow
Limited: 1 Edition
Available on NFT Showroom.
The post on that part of the journey can be found here.
With love only ever,
Nicky ..face it head on. let it go and on we go... 鉂わ笍 馃惥
Bonus track because music!
I can't quite believe another week has gone by and it's The Marvelous 
Eternal Seeker
Hardened Dreamer
Mother
Peaceful Warrior
Determined Dancer
and Stargazer
still...
Beyond fear is freedom
And there is nothing to be afraid of.
To Life, with Love... and always for Truth!
Nicky Dee
All images my own for this one. Original Aweh (meta Verse) illustration created with Photoshop. Original illustration used original source unknown. Gifs created using Canva with video by: Video by PNW Production.
Gif optimisation with EZGif
All photo editing done with GIMP.
