“The vibe changes in October.” Anonymous.
Salutations divine bags of mostly water, carbon units, sheeple, emanations of energy, spirit light and glowing souls. Welcome to another hump day from paradise. It’s Wednesday, humpday, middle of the week day, peak day. Awakening Wednesday with Wellness on the side. The two concepts go hand in hand. One can Awaken to Wellness, and within wellness. And wellness can awaken.
Today is the debut of The Awakening Vagabond series within the long-running Full Metal Ox Daily drops. No spoilers. Watch it for yourself.
Autumn has always been your humble vagabond’s most creative time of year. It’s like the crud dissolves around the third eye and Uni vibes get through better. We get more ideas and a bit more confident about what we’re doing. “What we’re doing” consists mainly of three activities. Workout everyday, be creative everyday and live everyday. These activities meet in the FMO enterprise, which now includes daily episodes, a weekly Audio (dexclusive to Substack & Gab), which explains the episodes, and daily articles/essays or maybe they are just blogs, spread across a handful of blogging platforms. It’s a lotta love for little return from the net, just sayin’… but it’s not really about applause and adulation. It’s about the magic.
Before we left the system, before we knew that the esoteric world had a vocabulary for what we were calling, “magic,” Voice kept repeated what we were going to do when the time was right.
Time.
Time converged. Time on Earth and Time in service.
“Take the pebble from my hand. Time for you to leave.”
“All I want to do is workout everyday, and be creative everyday. I want to do something that I can do anywhere.” Former Self.
Universe accommodated the “dream.” The ambition. We do not chase fame or celebrity. We attract solitude and connection.
Contradiction?
“It’s a Pisces thing. Don’t try to understand.”
So here we are, in the tropics. The right place to be, at the right time. Placed here by Fate, because we would have “never,” (or so we think), chosen to be here. Mainly, because we didn’t know it existed.
Act 1. Rocktober.
When FM radio ruled, and various versions of “rock and or roll” could be accessed from 88.0 to 108 megahertz, October became “Rocktober.”
Hard rock, soft rock, classic rock, acid rock, hair rock, vintage rock, rap rock, funk rock, jazz rock, girl rock, Black rock, nu rock, original rock, blues rock, rockabilly, punk rock, southern rock, grunge rock, modern rock, post modern rock, new age rock, christian rock, gospel rock, Brit-rock, smooth rock, rocky rock, rock your baby, rocky balboa rock, Afro-rock, rock opera, comedy rock, mock rock, cock rock, Mr Spock rock, under a rock and every other kind micro-rock music genre that an audience can be tricked into buying, would be sponsored by a Lite Beer label, and Rocktober would meet Oktoberfest at a micro-brewer beer garden in your hipster neighborhood. There you could listen to genre-less rock favorites and drink pumpkin spice brewskis.
The only FM radio to get to listen to these days plays through the speakers of the trolley. It’s smooth this or EZ that. (Did we forget ez-rock?) Had enough yet? So We don’t know what’s out there in the way of music formats these days. Or live music. We don’t get out much. Still, I haven’t seen or heard the word, Rocktoberfest, this month. At least not yet.
Act 2. Smokers & Cockroaches.
There are only two things that keep my Oasis Sanctuary from being the “perfect little paradise.” Smokers, and cockroaches. The woman across the court, I call her Mrs Roper because the first time I saw her she reminded me of the TV character, ( from Three’s Company.) She comes out several times daily to smoke.
When I first moved in, your humble nesting vagabond was under the impression that this was a non-smoking property. Indeed, all of these properties, by City Ordinance are supposed to be non-smoking. So when I smelled cigarette smoke wafting into my habitacion, it hit like a WTF moment. Mrs Roper has a routine. She smokes and watches whatever it is she’s watching on her mobile device, then she comes over to my side of the court and drops her cigarette in a tin can she “hides” in one of the palm tree pots. This occurs two to four times a day.
Mr Roper smokes too, but he usually steps outside the security gate, (currently not providing much security), but since the property manager either allows, or looks the other way, or more likely recognizes this as a fruitless effort, she literally shrugs it off. The smoking continues.
Because Mrs Roper smokes, it signals other tenants that they can smoke too. And they do. But what they do, as does Mrs Roper, because they don’t want that smell around their own dwellings, they come to the other side of the court. The side where your militant non-smoker resides.
It’s a test. How do we deal with a fruitless effort. Complaining does no good. Bringing authorities into the picture. That will literally do more harm than good. It vibes vindictive, and that’s not our style.
In an effort to beautify and comfortify the court, the heavy cement tables and benches were replaced by metal tables, lounge chairs and umbrellas. Basically, management created a smoking lounge.
What’s interesting about humans, besides a sense of entitlement and general laziness, (We are not exempt, but we work on it), is a type of behavior that suggests, If a behavior is not specifically condemned and made illegal, they will do it.
“Nobody told me not to.”
Recycling has been a practice for the majority of this century. Everybody recognizes the recycling bins by now. Part of the recycling process is breaking down the cardboard boxes that your daily Amazon crap is delivered in. The humans here don’t seem to get that, so the property manager has to break down the boxes, put them in the bin, and roll the bin up the hill to the street, every week. Recently a sign has been posted, “Please break down your cardboard boxes.” There’s some shit mature adults are supposed to know, or should have learned, by osmosis during their lifetime.
And speaking of shit, there are other signs posted that were recently posted on the property that have to do with picking up after pets. Here’s how these humans behave in this neighborhood. Not all of them obviously, but enough of them that there’s a business in making signs that “remind” pet-parents to pick up what their pets drop. When you walk up or down either side of the street there are “gentle reminders” to be a “good neighbor” and “clean up after your pets.” If there’s no such sign, pet-mom is like, “Oh, you can shit here honey. There’s no sign saying not to.”
Take that logic to the next level. There’s no sign saying, “Do not to take the bike that’s left in the driveway,” so it’s okay to steal it.
“That’s not the same thing,” says Karen the multiple-pet mommy.
It’s the same logic. Do we need to put signs up all over the place to keep humans from doing dumb human shit?
It’s like, “everybody knows” you don’t smoke on airplanes. Why there is still a “no smoking” sign in airplanes is beyond me. (It’s considered a “safety feature.”) Except, maybe if the sign were not there, and illuminated, certain passengers might think the no smoking policy had been repealed, despite the announcement that Federal law prohibits smoking on airplanes. In fact, one of the most common “unruly passenger” incidents, is smoking in the cabin or lavatories.
There are no, “No-smoking” signs in the court. Ironically. That would hold someone accountable.
Mrs Roper is clearly addicted, as most smokers are. There’s really nothing outside of her own self, or her own health, that can be done about it.
C’est la vie. It’s not worth moving out over, or even changing apartments. There’s a unit available on the top floor, but I don’t even want to look at it, because I might be tempted to make that move.
Cockroaches, as a species is nigh indestructible. Like humans. Or so we’ve been told. Roaches and humans will be the last critters standing on the planet. Perhaps the two species will merge somewhere down the evolutionary road, and we’ll have a “Men in Black” situation.
Cockroaches get bad rap. Well deserved too. But there are species of these critters that actually help break down waste and fertilize the land. But these helpers are not crawling up your walls. If the common pest species (like the German and American cockroaches) disappeared, the ecological impact would likely be insignificant or even beneficial, as they live almost exclusively in human environments and can carry pathogens. Plus they are icky!
The property contracts an exterminator to come through and spray monthly. It doesn’t seem to do any good. By the way, your boy was also surprised to see roaches in this place. Recently renovated just before moving in, our little sanctuary’s freshness belied the critters that dwelt behind the scenes. Still, the Oasis Sanctuary is a thousand times better than the last place. And the next place will be a thousand times better than this place. However, roaches might still show up.
We don’t want our environment to appear too perfect. This is how we know we’re not in a Simulation. Even though one of our themes, is living in a Simulation. The paradox makes it true.
If there was nothing to complain about, our realm would be unbalanced. We keep returning to the circle and the Yin Yang symbol to emphasize this balance.
Act 3. Progress.
Since the beginning of October, and over many years, the Full Metal Ox series and the Noxsoma “brand” has begun receiving a considerable increase in attention, as evidenced by views and subscriptions.
We welcome the attention. It’s more satisfying that financially profitable, which is our goal. So, Yay!
But curiosity asks, “Why?”
Universe says, “Don’t ask. Just welcome it.”
Brain cannot help but speculate. “Something has changed in the Matrix.”
We keep looking at these numbers and we want to “screen-shot” them and share them, which is something we said we wouldn’t do. We want to. But we won’t. It’s like counting your cash in public. Bad policy. We have noticed that this is not an across-the-board phenomenon. Some days, some titles, get way more than others. Some seem to get ignored. We’ll turn it over to the stats and analysis department, when we build it. Note, there has been a surge in users on the platform we are referring to. So our boat is rising too. We won’t get carried away and our “fame” won’t change your humble paranoid anti-social loner.
Cable news audience share is shrinking… quickly, so maybe the Full Metal Ox is picking up some of that detritus.
But, whatever. Maybe the changes reflects the changes we’ve made behind the scenes. Now, if we can get these folks on the channels to Substack, and some of the Substack peeps to the channels, we can begin to “visualize” the steps that will lead us to our podcast.
Act 4. Ego, Progress, and Satisfaction.
A couple of the dudes that train down at the monkey-bars commented on the improvement of the physique. “Leaner” and “more defined.”
Our reaction was both gratitude and surprise. As mentioned often, we see the vessel everyday. What do we notice?
Well, not so much the improvements. But we’ll take it.
We’ll take it as confirmation that we can improve the vessel at this stage of the life game. Which is one of our goals. If your boy actually does become a “fitness & longevity influencer,” at least we will have the “playground cred” and the video evidence to back up what we’re talking about.
One need not be a “contest-winner” to encourage a “civilization” of aspiring dudes who want to live healthy and mightily past their 50th lap around the sun, to go out and get fit. Your humble vagabond has done this with racket ball, weight lifting, aerobics, martial arts, calisthenics, resistance bands, throwing logs around in the park, a little bit of yoga, playing on the monkey-bars, and most recently gravity straps and suspension workouts.
What’s the conclusion? It all works. And it all works for most everybody.
Epilogue. Videos on Substack.
We will post the daily Full Metal Ox Drops on Substack if there’s an audience for the series. But we won’t leave them up there. Once we get to a week’s worth, we’ll delete anything that’s a week old. That’s the plan anyway. But ya gotta letta brotha know.
One more upload isn’t gonna take too much time away from the playground.
We’re Grateful Every Day!
Stay safe, stay strong, stay sane, stay savvy, stay serene, stay sovereign, stay subscribed.
PEACE.