death and taxes

this conversation is amazing! thank you stu and michael for having it in like this.

i'm at a film festival in warsaw right now thinking along these lines: how the fuck am i going to continue making a living with creativity in this nutty economy at a time when so many value systems are bottle necking, including my own

do i even expect other people to pay for this stuff when they want movies and music and everything else that can be transmitted through a collective medium for free?

stu's business idea is amazing - a running up the chakras through the lower right - that's pretty astounding-

but i can't help but look at myself and ask - would I ever have the balls to do that? The problem comes in when i start to question whether what i contribute creatively isn't just more confusion in the airspace - more muck for the mire - which sometimes I'm not so convinced isn't the case.

This is a big BIG SHADOW issue - it is perhaps the meanest of greenest in me - that it's all just muck for the mire so why waste my time?

if i judge things by talent - there's so many more developed artists than myself who probably work harder to maintain their skills - it kind of freaks me out and makes me say: let someone else fight the good fight. but then i can't really live with myself if i do that - it just doesn't seem possible to give up like that 

i 've since learned - through my own variant module of ilp - the 'giving up' module - whenever i feel flustered - i give up - and feel what it feels like to give up all the dreams and desires and needs to be doing this

and then i'm doing it again. it always comes back and it really comes back during ilp - which if i'm doing it - really DOING it (or it doing me whatever type of day it may be) then it doesn't matter what i'm doing - and being creative is all I know how to do as a 'trade' in the we/it space

but then, there's this subtler voice in me that sometimes speaks with serious dislike

it says: i don't like much of what i see out there and there fore I don't expect others to like mine that much

but then another pathology (probably Bigger) really really wants them to love it - and this creates a strange and sometimes dehabilitating tension - 

when i think of the creative stuff i do support with my own money - i  think of Radiohead whom i gave 20 pounds for their free online album "In Rainbows"  I think back then 20 pounds was forty dollars - and I really wanted to give 100 - because to me they are 'Art'. 

This is a band that contributed to much of my 1990s awakening experiences - the video for their song 'Just' hit me in a way that still is a haunting truth on a subtle energetic level of truly laying down to surrender - then "OK computer" - containing what might be up there with best songs ever in structure and depth of concept in 'Karma Police'  and finally the "KID A-Amnesia" one-two punch - those opening chords of 'Everything in it's right place' - knowing the very subtle feelings of 'sucking on a lemon' while waking up - "Amnesia" has gotten me through many difficult scenes while writing to its sounds  -

But I could only give 20 pounds of flesh because this was during one of my 'slow' economic periods - similar to now - I still felt good giving what I could for their freely offered 'pay what you like' model.

True - only the biggest band in the world can give you free will in the matter. I only mention radiohead because experiences their work gave me is pretty close to spiritual - real Art - and moved me through states and stage - and I question whether I see my own work doing the same to others - insecurity at it's worst - but also practicality - it's a lot to live up to and do I really want somebody worshipping my stuff? at some point that might have been attractive, but at this point in life it's not that appealing -

but again - this conversation is mainly about making a living - which takes all the grandiosity out of high 'art' and brings it down to what it is to the majority - that is making 'entertainment' that passes the audiences time by making them relate and feel things and hopefully see a new perspective -

Granted - I don't really even listen to radiohead much anymore - they can easily alter my state to 'depression' - although I do notice now - if I do choose to listen to them - with a little bit of AQAL - I can deepen my depression to a state of pure presence - Thank you Integral! 

seriously thank you - and seriously it's still a tall task trying to summon up the energy to ask others to spend millions of dollars on expensive film projects I have -

the answer of course is to do low cost projects - or find ways to cut costs (ongoing activities anyway) - but there are still those projects which - until a miracle technology is invented - cannot be made for less than a small NASA satellite - how can i find the deeply needed value to spend such resources on a "Movie"

thus far I've done my better work - the stuff i'm most proud of - outside the system of controls which exist in movie studios - giant corporations - which we know are living and breathing and being forced to shift and change with the environment and the times.

This change we hope - we KNOW - will be a good thing - openings for many to step in and make changes in the maze of Corporatia and the controlling of content in our world wide media 

but still - there is a subtle beast of bastardy that shifts along with it - the thing that seems to squeeze the goodness out of the cracks in the system

or at least we can say it redirects goodness to otherwise unknown spaces of awareness - 

NPR just did a report on the Disney's firing of Dick Cook - who did a lot of great work behind the corporate curtain - he is a much loved executive by many creative types - mucho amor from Johnny Depp, who threatens to walk away from Pirates of The Carribean 4 because of his relationship with Cook - and from Steven Spielberg who apparently "worships Dick" (lol seriously - read it HERE) part of a trend, as NPR said,  of creative executives - who are friends with artists - being replaced by branding experts - who are friends with lawyers -

what we need is an integration of lawyers who are creative and executives who are artists and artists who are fiscally responsible to their own ability to contribute more loving transformations of spirit and mind into out of and within matter.

Thank you guys for this conversation - SO MUCH LOVE FOR CREATION!