Paul Simon is not the Topic of Discussion

Paul Simon is not the Topic of Discussion.  He just released a new album.  April 11, 2011.  Beautiful day, so what.  I bought the album in Starbucks. (Take me to the stars with your green, wanderlusting, fucklebusting, neverlasting bucks, the bucks that don't pay bills.)  But Paul Simon is not the Topic of Discussion.  I want to talk about Emotion, or from Middle English, Emotione.  Emotion, the very word triggers a response: BE CAREFUL.  Don't talk about it too much, don't let those slippery emotions fall out of your stomach.  Be watchful, guarded, strong.  Flex your bicep and reject.  The whole thing needs a pentagon agency devoted to closing the door.

I was having this discussion in a taxi downtown, re-arranging my position on this friend of mine who had a little bit of a breakdown.

But I want to talk about emotion.  Emotion engulfs.  It ensnares.  It occupies, not directly, indirectly operating on your swirling mind.  How do we ease the incessant thinking?  How do we feel better?  There are many who have answers.  I guess that's all I want to say tonight.  There are many who have answers.  It's up to you to pick and choose and sort through the bullshit.  And when emotion slams down and pulverizes your brain like an anvil whipped across space and time, meshing with your frontal cortex (compassion), and leaves you near death, dazed, in a stupor, just fucking miserable, repulsed, disgusted with yourself and your life; when emotion powers the sicknesses of depression, anxiety, panic, attacks; when emotion runs out of control and leaves you a long way from wanting any fucking celebrity apprentice to magic-wand his way into your mind and fuck you with Advice.  When the sickness is so overpowering, the hospital starts to sound like a good place for an afternoon coffee, there are people who have answers.  It is up to you to sift through the bullshit and find the answers.  You probably won't want to start here.  But start somewhere.  Go out into the night of resistance and find something, one star in the night, one thing to hold on to.  And from there swing like Tarzan to the next star in the night.  Fight the instinct that it is in your DNA, that you are pre-emptively fucked from the beginning, that the sickness is real and everything else is shadow.  Go out and find one thing.  Just one thing.

with compassion,
and love,
Anthony