Piousbox

TURNING 60
by Miles Mathis
First published November 3, 2023
Many of you know I just turned 60 in September. Those are pictures I took yesterday to give you an
update. Some have been worried about me, since I recently talked about hitting the wall in a Brad Pitt
paper. You may also remember my moving to California story from 2021, with the Penske truck, the
four cats in the cab, and the near nervous breakdown. I am still recovering from that more than two
years later. But as you see I am not dead yet.
I was able to go back to Austin to see family for my birthday, and some fun was had by all. I got to
play golf with my brother for the first time in years, and a story comes out of that for those few who
can sit through it. The rest of you can skip ahead. I know that if you don't play, golf stories are
BORING. I am reminded of Caddyshack, where Lacey Underalls has just met Ty Webb (Chevy
Chase) at a country club mixer and taunts him with, “I guess you have lots of stories about your ball
landing in the road”, rolling her eyes. Yeah, I get it, but I am still going to tell my story. I have to
listen to everyone else's stupid stories about themselves, so occasionally you have to listen to mine, or
skip ahead without making me feel too bad about it.
More than half my stuff is still in storage, including my painting equipment and, as it turns out, my
golfclubs. Everything is packed so tight and in such quantities I can't possibly get to anything until I
move again. So I hadn't picked up a club in over two years. Rather than rent clubs, I just played out of
my brother's bag. You aren't supposed to do that, but what were they going to do. As Phoebe says,
there are no police for that. My brother's clubs are nothing like mine, since his are new and mine are
from the late 1960s. But I can adjust to almost anything, and the truth be told his were actually easier
to hit than mine. What everyone has been telling me about new clubs is true. Darn. I hate it when that
happens. I can't afford the new clubs, though, so I guess it works out I love the old ones. I cherish
being stuck in the past.
The funny thing is, my brother has a hook face on his driver and he didn't bother to tell me that. It is
dialed full left. His swing is completely different than mine. For those who don't know, you often can't
tell by looking at a driver. It is not like the face of the club is slanted left. It is done with interior
weights. Drivers since the late 1990s are high-tech gadgets of that nature, and they now cost hundreds
of dollars. I don't even know how many hundreds. I got mine for $20 on Ebay, although it was top-
shelf about 30 years ago. Titleist 975, 7.5o, if you really want to know.
Anyway, Brother also made sure we arrived at the course too late to hit more than about five balls, to
warm up after two years. I didn't even get to putt. So we get up on the first tee and I hit the ball 30
yards left, so far out in the weeds my hayfever kicked in just looking at it. I took a mulligan and hit the
second one 20 yards left, but somewhere in the known course. There was a possibility I might find it,
with the help of GPS and a team of sherpas. I finally found the ball and somehow got it on the green
with my second shot, hitting blind. I was playing with my Dad's putter, which is nothing like mine, so
the first putt went about fifteen feet past. Terrible. My brother joked it was a misclub, on a putt.
Funny. He stopped laughing when I made the second putt for a par.
The same thing happened on the second hole: drive way left, awful first putt, made the second putt.
Even the guys we were playing with were laughing, joking that I preferred long second putts.
So we get around to number 5, which has a lake all the way down the left side, from tee to green. I am
sure my brother was chuckling evilly to himself under that suave exterior, but I was still clueless. I was
already two over by then, so I figured it was just going to be one of those days. My expectations were
low due to not playing. We were playing the white tees due to the twosome they had paired us with, so
I decided to try to drive the green. Of course I hit the first drive about 20 yards out into the lake. I
threw another ball down, about to try again, and my brother finally said something. Did he tell me
about the driver? Not even. But he did say, “You don't want to do that. Why waste another ball?”
But by then it was all about the glory. I corrected my swing and put the second ball on the green, about
20 feet left of the pin. So I could have made it for a par. I didn't, but I did make five, keeping myself
in the game.
So anyway, we get through the front nine and I am three over. My brother is one under, on his home
course. But I am starting to get warmed up and I have figured out his driver. I hadn't figured out it had
a hook face, but I had tweaked my swing to compensate. I was now hitting every fairway. I had
figured out the putter, too. So my brother was beginning to sweat a little. I birdied 11 and 14, so I am
now just one over, and he is still one under. On 15 I hit first and stripe it and he hits it in the left
bunker. There is a river in front of the green, so he has to hit out of the sand and over the river, so I am
thinking if I birdie I could see a 3-shot swing. He hits it in the river and I hit it up about ten feet away
from the hole. I miss it, but he takes a double so we are now even. I then birdie 16 and go one up. So
he shoots one over and I shoot even.
To recap, that is a 32 on the back nine, playing out of someone else's bag, with a secret hook-faced
driver, after not playing for two years and coming in cold. At age 60. So yeah, it was a good birthday.
He finally told me about the hook face as we were walking back to the car. At that point I didn't even
care. I just let it go. It was a beautiful day and we both played well, so we decided to focus on that.
I actually got through that story pretty fast. I could have made it much longer and more painful for
you. Be grateful.
I also had lunch with a girlfriend from long long ago, so that was interesting. It reminded me how
funny it is the way things turn out sometimes. Back then she considered herself a punk and a
revolutionary, and I was. . . not. While she was listening to the Clash, I was listening to Bread. Very
not cool. She tried to convince me to dabble in bisexuality, but I had no interest in that. Again, very
not cool. So it is interesting to see who became the real revolutionary. You will say I am still a nerd,
which is true, but I have also outed more CIA/government projects than everyone else combined. Not
just of everyone else now living, but everyone else in history. Same for the fields of art and physics.
So, as I say, it is funny how things turn out sometimes.
That tends to prove what I have been telling you for years: revolution isn't about that, and neither is
counterculture or being cool. It isn't about listening to shit-fake political music or tattoos or piercings
or green hair or duct-taping your Doc Martens. It isn't about taking drugs or slam dancing or wearing a
Sex Pistols T-shirt. I still listen to Olivia Newton John, and I do more revolutionary things in a week
than those people have done in their whole lives. The government devotes thousands of man-hours
trying to corral and kettle me and my followers. How many man-hours do you think they devote to
countering the punks? Can you say zero? No, they created those people and are happy for them to
self-destruct in their little self-limiting pens.
You will say I am sounding worked up again. Maybe even bitter. Maybe even defensive. Oh, I'm
sorry, it isn't punk-rock to get angry, I forgot. It isn't punk to solve real problems or attack real
enemies. Punk is about internalizing anger in self-destruction. It is about wasting your energy and
creativity on styles and poses and CIA-front bands of trashed-out losers. It is about pretending
screaming drug addicts are musicians. Just as Modern art is art for people with no eye, punk and most
other current genres are “music” for people with no ear. They have no ear for music and so when their
“music” contains no musicality, they don't miss it. They figure they might as well replace it with
politics and posing, since music means nothing to them.
Punk has never inconvenienced the rulers one iota, and that is because it was created to be “political”,
and therefore to channel the nascent politics of the young into these small and meaningless expressions
of revolt. It isn't even really political, it just resembles politics by borrowing some of the simplest
words and ideas—being thereby pseudo-political—but when you get down to it is the destruction and
suppression of all real political action via misdirection. Ignoring for the moment the inconvenient fact
that many top punk bands were openly Nazi or fascist, which should have concerned these kids who
thought they were rebelling against their parents—who they saw as fascists—the whole enterprise was
a planned fail regardless of whether it leaned left or right. It was a planned fail because it was a
defocusing of energy rather than a focusing. When you got down to it, it was just a big steam-blow,
mostly via drugs, so it wasn't going anywhere. No one even talked about it going anywhere. The point
was to go precisely nowhere, with a lot of noise and drama.
Another thing leapt out at me during our conversation. She was fishing about my levels of success, and
I admitted to her I didn't have any money. But, I said, I didn't care. I reminded her money had never
meant anything to me, thinking that was still considered a plus in the punk handbook. But she just
said, “I love money”. No really, she said that, and didn't even catch herself or laugh. Wow.
OK, enough about that. I bet you are wishing I would go back to the golf stories. The main reason I
am here today is to talk about aging. To get right to it, I have had a lot of people ask me how and why I
look younger, so I will just tell you why I think it is. I have mostly avoided the question so far, though
it keeps coming up, since it requires I talk about myself, and many people are triggered by that. Other
people can tell their stories and answer questions, but I am supposed to keep quiet. I came up against it
while I was home: several people asked why I didn't look 60, but they clearly didn't want me to tell
them. It wasn't exactly a rhetorical question—they really did want an answer—they just didn't want to
hear it from me. I guess they wanted a team of “doctors” to run a battery of tests on me and file a
report. Although I am obviously in the best position to know, I am not allowed to talk about myself.*
But as with the golf story, I am going to tell it anyway. I do so because unlike the golf story, it may, I
think, be useful to someone someday. There is currently a big kerfuffle about anti-aging, living
forever, and so on, so you would think someone out there would be glad I have finally become chatty,
for whatever reason. If not, well, you can skip ahead again. This paper is long and I may get around to
saying something that doesn't offend you. I hope not, but it is possible.
Some will dismiss it as genetics, and though that has something to do with it, I don't believe it is much
of an answer. In my case, it doesn't really address the facts, since the other men in my family—where I
got my genes—haven't aged astonishingly well. Both my grandfathers died at 69 and looked at least 69
when they died. They certainly weren't miracles of preservation. My father will be 84 in October, and
he looks about that age. His mind is still good, but his body is crashing fast, as he just admitted to me.
Though he was a pretty handsome guy, he has always looked roughly his age. Maybe a few years
younger for a while, but not more than decade. My brother was baby-faced for many years, since we
both got smooth skin from our mother, but after 45 he looked pretty much his age. He is younger than
me but now looks older. My uncles have always looked pretty much their real age. I don't see my
cousins much, but one of them was aging pretty well for a while. He doesn't look fifteen years younger
now, though.
So it must be more than genetics. I am now convinced it is due to three major factors. The first two
are physical so we will hit them first. One, I have a very slow heart rate. Two, I sleep a lot. It also
helps that I don't smoke, drink, or do drugs. [I almost forgot water. I drink lots of water. I think a
large part of aging for many people is chronic and long-term dehydration. Old people look “dried-up”,
don't they, and that is no accident. Don't dry up. Keep yourself well watered. And be picky about
your water. No fluoride, just for a start.]
As far as heart rate goes, you could chalk that up to genetics, I guess, since I am not a top athlete and
never was. My bradycardia isn't due to that. I was in very good shape in my twenties, due to cycling,
and have kept in shape since then, but since my thirties it was just basic maintenance. I certainly
haven't had what anyone would call high levels of endurance since then, just staying thin and
reasonably fit. So I really can't explain why my heart rate has stayed so low all my life. I suspect it
was always abnormally low, and I remember having a tendency to faint when I was younger. I still
have it, a bit. I have always had to be careful not to faint when sick or when in the doctor's office. The
trick is to lie down very fast, so that you don't fall down. Hit the deck so that the deck doesn't hit you.
And yes, my blood pressure is also very low.
But what does that have to do with aging? It sounds more like a malady than a trick for not aging.
Well, maybe it is, but one of the side effects is slowed aging. One of my theories here is that age isn't a
matter of years, it is a matter of heartbeats. I have had far fewer heartbeats in my life than most people
my age, so I am younger in that sense. And the difference isn't marginal. It is something over 25%.
The average heart rate is 70-80, and that has actually risen in the past 50 years as people get fatter. My
resting heart rate has been about 48 for decades, and it drops even lower when I sleep. A lot lower.
Which brings us to sleep. I sleep about ten hours a night, often more, and when asleep my heart rate is
about 38. I have measured it at 35 in the middle of the night, but of course I had to wake up to measure
it. So it may go even lower. As you can see, that brings my average way down again relative to most
people. According to recent polls, the average sleep is 7 hours a night, and only about 9% of people
reporting sleeping more than 9 hours. Most of those will be college boys and the elderly.
So my average rate per day is about 44. The average rate for most Americans is more like 78. That's a
huge difference. If age is determined by heartbeats rather than years, that almost explains my aging by
itself.
You will say, “Great, but that doesn't really help us, does it? We weren't born with this <malady> and
so we can't get this side effect.”
Maybe, maybe not. What I experience may be a malady and it may not. Which is why I am putting it
down on paper for future study. It may be repeatable. As you know, I have decided to talk more about
personal stuff—with all the risks that entails for me—for the sake of those who do want to hear it, and
for the sake of those who already seem to be studying me from a distance. We have already seen some
limited defamatory biographies of me by people that have never met me or anyone I know, and I expect
more to come. But at some point I think we may see some positive biographies, and they need some
material. Unlike the Phoenicians, I have never had a cabal of buddies and promoters that can tell my
stories. So if anyone is to say what I have done, where I have gone, what I have seen, and what I
thought about it, it looks like it is up to me. Which is just as well, since I don't know anyone even
remotely qualified to tell my story.
Anyway, you can certainly sleep more and avoid smoking, alcohol, and drugs. Smoking and most
drugs raise your heart rate, so avoid that as a start. Avoid anything else that raises your heart rate, other
than exercise in fresh air. Avoid stressful situations, including stressful jobs, stressful marriages, and
so on. As far as possible, try to stay as relaxed as possible at all times. A sort of yogi mentality.
I know, easy to say, much harder to accomplish.
What I realized when I started taking yoga in my 40s was that I had already been practicing yoga my
whole life, without knowing it. I hadn't been doing the postures (though I was stretchy and loose from
gymnastics in college), but I had been purposefully existing in alpha and theta brain states when others
had been in beta. What do I mean by that? I mean that I learned early on how to slow my mind and
breath down to slow down my brainwaves, which meant I was in a more restful and less stressful place
even while awake. This is why people sometimes called me dreamy. At times I remember people
accusing me of being stoned when I wasn't. My father called it “being in la-la land”. It wasn't a
compliment coming from him, I assure you, but in a way it was accurate. I was in another place,
compared to most people. I am always in another place compared to most people. Which is probably
why they “can't figure me out” or are even scared of me. I am not existing in that quick, irrational beta
state most people exist in most of the time.
Of course this is why I can so easily see through most people and events. It is precisely why I can do
what I do. I have sometimes been called an alien or angel, seeming to look down on events from
outside. I am not an angel or alien, as far as I know, just a guy living on a slightly different plane than
most. My slowed brainwaves and heartbeat somehow give me both a physical and mental detachment
that allows me a more logical look at history. From this vantage I am able to see what most people
don't.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Hard to say, even for me. Sometimes it feels like a gift and other
times like a curse. But one thing is for sure: there is no going back. After 60 years of this I couldn't be
“normal” if I tried.
That is why I was such a perfect fit for Bruges. Most modern people aren't interested in living there,
though it has always been a tourist town and is very beautiful. But it is considered staid and boring.
Old-fashioned. But it could also be called alpha state. It is very easy to hypnotize oneself there,
entering a sort of nowhere land or land out of time. You become like the swans swimming slowly
down the canals, lost in their own pretty dreams. After a few months there you are surprised your heart
is beating at all. That is the way I have always felt, everywhere, but in Bruges I felt at home since
everyone else was feeling the same thing, to one extent or the other. I was not an oddball there, just
another square peg that had finally found a fit. A dreamer who had found a dreamland.
<Added after a long pause:>
This ability to escape into my own little world is especially useful in times like the present, where
things are purposely being made to spin out of control, or seem to. I have a sort of prefab cocoon I can
crawl into. It is called my bed, the greatest place I can think of. Others try to escape with alcohol or
drugs, but I have my bed. Because I have my bed and can escape into sleep whenever I need to, I can
avoid the stress (somewhat). So why can't others do that? Why do they have to knock themselves out
with drugs or alcohol to get any sleep? I am not entirely sure, but I have my theories. The simplest
answer is too much stimulation. Too much caffeine and sugar. Vidgames. Porn. Hyperactive TV and
movies. Many people get addicted early on and can't break the habit. But for most it is more than that.
As I have said before, I think it is basic fear of sleep, because in sleep they can no longer avoid
themselves with this drugging. Their dreams are not pleasant because they are attacked by their own
bad consciences. So they don't embrace the bed like I do; they flee it.
This may be the greatest argument of all for being a good person (and for avoiding drugs). Young
people should be taught this, but of course they aren't. They used to be taught it in church to some
extent, though we were never taught this specifically. We were told to be good for goodness sake (like
at Christmas), or for the sake of Jesus, or for the sake of heaven later, but we weren't warned that if we
became bad we wouldn't be able to sleep and our whole lives would begin to crumble. The ones who
ignored that and became bad figured they might have to pay for it after death (if ever), but they never
considered that they would begin paying for it immediately, starting in their late twenties, say. They
didn't realize the fruits of their bad decisions would be set by age 30, and that their early beauty would
begin fading fast and would soon be gone. They weren't warned how awful that would be, and how
hard to reverse.
Most now assume that is just the way it is. You burn out by 30 and it is all downhill from there. What
are you going to do? But that is a horrible assumption because it isn't true. Or it needn't be true. Yes,
it seems to be the common arc in modern society, but that is because people aren't taught any better.
They don't get it in school, at home, or in church. I had to discover it on my own. Early on, I chose the
good for other reasons. Certainly not because I wanted to look younger. That side effect never
occurred to me because, well, I already was young, and looked even younger. The good just appealed
to me. I wanted to be pure. I wanted to be clean. I didn't want to be riddled with vices. I respected

myself from an early age and wanted to continue to respect myself. I saw a vision of the future, and I
wanted to be that guy who had done the right things, or at least tried to. I didn't want to be that guy that
had cheated, lied, and stolen to get ahead. I could deal with failure, since I could see that success or
failure was somewhat out of my hands. The world determined that, and I couldn't control the world.
But what I could control was my own actions. Even in failure (or being denied opportunity, I should
say) I could remain clean.
It was that cleanliness that allowed me to sleep, I think, and it was that sleep that kept me from aging
fast. Which is why I keep telling the Aubrey de Greys of the world they are on the wrong track. He
thinks he is going to be able to unlock some genetic secret that will allow him to look young at 60,
when it has nothing to do with that. I have now done it, so I know. The secret isn't some drug or some
DNA tweak. It isn't cats brains or baby's blood. It isn't a matter of free radicals or oxygenation or any
of that rubbish, either. It isn't a matter of physical purity (or not only), it is mainly a matter of spiritual
purity, as the religions have been telling us all along. It is a matter of feeling at home in your own
body, and you can't do that if you are an evil bastard. Subconsciously, evil bastards know they are evil
bastards, and this knowledge affects their sleep cycles. Once the sleep cycle is destroyed, all health is
destroyed, and with it your looks. You get accelerated aging, the bugaboo of a majority of Modern
people.
But let's back up and hit Aubrey de Grey a bit harder. Like me, he was born in 1963. So he also just
turned 60.
That's him eight years ago, when he was 52. You can see the video at Youtube. I couldn't find any
photos of myself at age 52, but you will remember these:



That's me at age 46, 55, and 57. You can see I lost some color and curl in my hair, but that is about it.
I have definitely aged in the past three years, with my hair again taking the worst of it, but I don't look
to be in the same decade as de Grey. I look at least ten years younger than de Grey looked eight years
ago, which is a difference of eighteen years. Who should be lecturing on youth, him or me? I say this
pointedly, since it not only proves my right to be here on this page—being a slamdunk—but since it
mirrors the form of every other question we come across. De Grey is a rich guy who bought himself
expert status in this field, so he gets all the mainstream face-time and promotion. Me, I get buried. I
didn't go to Trinity College, Cambridge, didn't grow up in the British peerage, and don't have ties to
Mountain View, CA, so I could literally be aging backwards like Benjamin Button and the world would
still pretend I don't exist. As it goes on this question of aging, so it goes in art and physics and poetry
and everything else I have tried to do. The field had already been bought out by a gaggle of rich
phoenies before I got there, and they ain't letting me in regardless. I could have an IQ of 300 and a
oeuvre notarized by Yahweh himself, and they would still pretend I don't exist. Skull and Bones, you
know.
You may think it is mean of me to put pictures of myself next to him, but the meanness is all in the
other direction. These people have been hogging not just the limelight, but all interesting jobs and
funding, for centuries, in all fields. They inflate or fake their resumes, lie about where they come from,
and promote themselves as geniuses while clogging up every field with corruption and criminality. I
don't know de Grey and don't know that he is evil, but his face tells us he doesn't sleep well. You
should ask him why that is.
Watching that video, I would say de Grey doesn't get enough sun or exercise, either. He looks vitamin
D and C depleted. He may have unresolved dental issues, which can cause major problems. And he
may drink too much beer. You can see why he would be drinking all the time, since he is now in the
embarrassing position of being the world's most promoted authority on aging, and aging MORE than
normal. I couldn't find any more recent pictures of him, so it looks like he has gone into hiding. There
is a Forbes article on his turning 60, but they lead with a picture him from 2008, when he was 45.
Cheating, isn't it? He has gone even deeper undercover since being fired from his own company for
sexual misconduct. You will say it is just another example of Men-are-Pigs, but either way is a game-
ender for de Grey. The claims are either true, in which case we may assume even worse things are
being covered up, or they are false, in which case de Grey has agreed to be part of the international
Men-are-Pigs project, in order to disempower all men and split the sexes.
In that Forbes article from earlier this year, we also find this:
When I asked him about how aging affected him during the past 25 years, he responded,
"I'm one of those repulsively lucky people in that sense. I can still eat and drink what I like
and not even exercise, and basically nothing happens.”
Wow. Repulsive, yes; true, no. As we have seen, that is just a flat-out lie. If so, why not show us a
current photo? You looked like hell at 52, so you must look even worse at 60. Doesn't matter. The
truth doesn't matter to these people, and Forbes and its writer Alex Zhavoronkov will continue to sell
de Grey as young as he wilts into the grave, since it suits their investments to do so. But I have to
wonder: those big bleeding sores on his face, what miraculous new anti-aging tech are they a side-
effect of?
Just so you know, de Grey was given a PhD by Cambridge at age 37 “for publication”. What does that
mean? It means that he skipped the necessity of spending four years in a PhD program like everyone
else, being given the degree for work he had already done for other reasons. In other words, the usual
bye these people have, gifting them credentials they wouldn't otherwise have. De Grey's BA was in
computer science, but his PhD was in biology, in which it obviously helped that his wife—a
Cambridge professor—was also his tutor and sponsor. Don't ask how that works because you already
know. We have seen that Ludwig Wittgenstein was also gifted a PhD from Cambridge, though
Wittgenstein didn't even have a bachelor's from Cambridge—supposedly a requirement for the PhD by
publication. Wittgenstein had only spent three semesters at the Technical University of Berlin, but
what the hey, he was a billionaire Jew, so the rules don't apply. So that's the company de Grey is
keeping in that category.
Which is not to say that everyone who now looks bad is evil. I want to be clear on that. Many no
doubt nice enough people look bad for strictly physical reasons: they don't take care of themselves.
They eat too much, eat garbage, drink, smoke, and do drugs. That will prematurely age the nicest
person. But they aren't who I am talking about here, as should be clear. Many of them sleep well
enough, perhaps. I am addressing a whole class of people—who we both know do exist—who have
destroyed their sleep cycles for precisely the reason I have given. You will say that's all as maybe, but
those people aren't reading my papers anyway. Ah, don't be too sure. They may not be here for advice,
you are right, but they are here. The advice gets into their heads regardless, though you will just have
to take my word for it.
I finally began to figure this out in my 40s, and as you know I have been warning my readers about it
for years. It is now part of my general sermon. But I know that many don't take it too well. Especially
those over 40, who figure it is too late. What is done is done, and purity—like virginity—can never be
reclaimed.
Wrong. It can be reclaimed immediately, and with it new health and even new looks. I have personal
proof of that as well, though on a small scale, and I will now share it with you. Some of you will
remember I hit a small wall in 2021 when I had to move out of my house in Taos and go to California.
Due to Covid, rents almost doubled at that time and I couldn't find a place. After months of looking
unsuccessfully, I finally moved in with a friend who had a room. I moved more than half my stuff into
storage and haven't been able to paint since then. I lost a couple of my cats in that period, and the
move was very difficult because I had to move myself, renting one of those big yellow trucks. All in
all it was just too much for me and I had a minor nervous breakdown. I say minor because I wasn't

hospitalized and was still able to take care of myself. No one was nursing me. But I was in the worst
place of my life. Still just coming out of it, to be honest. Physically this expressed itself in my hair
turning gray and thinning more. I got new lines on my face. Part of me figured it was all over in that
regard, and I buzzed my hair for the first time in my life. I couldn't stand to look at it any more. I
thought that was going to be a big deal for me, since that curly blond hair has been a part of my look
for 46 years. But honestly it wasn't as traumatic as I had thought. I let it go with barely a whimper.
But once I started feeling better in late 2022, I read that you could get the color back in your hair by
taking certain vitamins. You might even be able to get regrowth. I figured I would give it a shot.
Hope springs eternal, as they say. Friends told me there was no way that would happen at my age.
That vitamin treatment was for younger people, they said.
But it worked. The color actually returned to gray hair that was already on my head. The gray became
blond, almost overnight. I even got some regrowth. Now, to be honest, my hair still isn't what it was.
It hasn't magically returned to what it was at 45. But it is noticeably better than it was two years ago.
And this was done mainly with collagen and biotin. . . and with less stress. New kittens helped.

The point is, it is definitely possible to reverse physical damage, even at my age.
Full disclosure: it hasn't worked on the lower beard yet, which is still gray. I sometimes color that to
match.
And here's the thing: if I can do that with just a couple of vitamins, just think what you can do by
embracing goodness. If you can clean up your spirit and restore your sleep cycle, the sky is the limit on
the positive changes that will occur.
This by itself proves de Grey is wrong. You don't need millions of dollars of high-tech research and
fancy cellular manipulations to stall or reverse aging and damage. It can be done with sleep and
vitamins. Turning hair from grey to blond on a 60 year old is an example of reversing damage, of just
the sort he is talking about. Sleep is and always has been the main way Nature repairs body damage,
along with food, so it amazing de Grey has never had anything to say about sleep.
I know that most of my readers are already good people. That is why they are here. But some will
have arrived here from another place, and they will know what I am talking about. They may be ready
to hear what I am saying. For others it may not have occurred to them that all is reversible, both
physical and especially spiritual. It is never too late to turn the ship around. For every problem there is
a solution. There is always the possibility of repentance and forgiveness and a new path. It doesn't
even require you embrace a new religion or join any group. You don't have to become a born-again.
You can do it all at home on your own terms, if you like, though for most it will be easier with group
support. The important thing is that you admit there is a thing called goodness, however you wish to
imagine it. It is a real thing, part of the order of life, and it will impact you whether you believe in it or
not, whether you bow to it or not. You can explain it with gods and religion or not, you can dress it in
any number of ways, it doesn't much matter, but it will not be ignored. You cannot drive around it, so
you best face it and come to terms with it. If you align to it, you will be better off, and if you don't
align to it you will regret it. I normally just call it Nature.
Some have aligned to another thing, which they know is not goodness. They know it is not Nature. A
worldly thing that comes down from the governors, a thing that does seem to promise success. Some
have said this comes from Satan, and I have argued it just comes from bad men, but the important thing
is to flee it. It is death and darkness one way or the other. Goodness does not promise success, much
less guarantee it. In my experience goodness is a guarantee of conflict with society, since society is run
by bad men. But you have to embrace it anyway, for its own sake as well as your own.
This is the main test of life, as we have been told by all the wise people of history.
I can now tell you from experience that the rewards for passing the test are real. Goodness isn't its own
reward, as they sometimes say. The rewards are tangible, and they begin in this life, among them being
self satisfaction, a pleasant face, the admiration of others, and good sleep. Animals and children will
be drawn to you and love you, which is reason enough by itself, ignoring everything else. A sort of St.
Francis benefit. I have stories to tell there as well, and someday I will get to them.
Like everyone else sent to this Earth, I am all-too-human and have far to go, but if I have any positive
qualities, foremost among them is my directness. In my opinion the wise have never been direct or
personal enough, and if people remain confused this late in history, it is understandable given the
fogginess of the advice we have been given by our sages. Perhaps the words of the sages have been
hidden and muddied, none of us know for sure, but it seems to me they should have told us these things
in simple words and ideas. They should have told us more about themselves and their personal
experiences, as I am trying to do. Perhaps, being far wiser than I am, their experiences were nothing
like mine. But it is also possible they feared being accused of what I have been accused of, and will be
accused of for this paper.
I am beyond caring about all that, as you know. I want to be of some use to you, and I am not too
concerned about what people think of me. They can think what they wish, and they may be right to
some extent.* But that isn't the point. The point is to honestly relate the life I have lived, that others
can learn from it, positive or negative. I have seen things through these eyes that no one else has seen.
The wiser may have seen more or deeper, but they haven't seen what I have seen since only I have
experienced this particular life. I am beginning to understand that it has been an extraordinary life,
worth telling from my point of view, the more personal and idiosyncratic the better. If I am deluded,
well, who isn't, and nothing lost. But if I am not, then it will have been worth putting down on paper.
So let's get back to it. I said above that I pursued purity. Could I be more specific? I can. In a lifetime
of choices, do you know what the deciding factor in this often is? Choice of job. It was this choice that
—more than anything—determined my life. Refusing to join the rat race was my first and most
important act of rebellion. My initial bow to purity. It wasn't easy, since it required going against not
only my society but my family and friends. It was a hard tack into the wind and hasn't gotten any
easier over the years. But I have never once regretted it. With each passing decade I cherish that
decision more and more, despite the loneliness and hardships.
Those who get trapped most often trap themselves right here, by getting on a ride it is very difficult to
get off of. The first compromise leads to a long line of them, each larger than the one before. And the
sad part is that our society seems to demand this compromise. The entire edifice is built on corruption,
so the minute you start joining it is the minute you begin dying inside. You begin by compromising a
little and end by compromising everything.
And again, many or most think that is just the way it is. That is life. But it isn't. That is not the world,
that is what they have made the world. But it can be made in other ways. It must be made in other
ways.
You will say you aren't an artist, or don't want to be. So what are you going to do? Well, you don't
have to be an artist. You just have to be something real, something meaningful to you. You do a job
that needs to be done, not one that destroys the world or preys on people. It could be working at a
healthfood restaurant, for instance. It could be building non-toxic houses. It could be making natural
clothing. It could be caring for animals. It could be cleaning up the environment. It could be exposing
corruption. It could be as a lawyer suing polluters. It could be as a natural doctor, fighting Big
Pharma. It could be framing pictures or selling old books. It could be sweeping the streets. Anything
truly useful. Better to sweep the streets or repair bicycles than to make millions working for the man.
Remember that. You will never be able to sleep soundly working for the man. No amount of money
will buy you peace of mind. It will catch up with you sooner or later, most likely sooner.
Many would call most of those hippie jobs, which is why I sometimes call myself a hippie and defend
them. I am not really much of hippie, in common parlance, since I don't smoke the herb, don't like
patchouli, don't like tattoos, don't like dreads, don't like reggae or The Grateful Dead, etc. But in other
ways I am a fellow traveller. I don't do deodorants or perfumes, I like nudity, I am all for naturism and
tree-hugging, I love long hair and respect a good beard, I like old stuff, I like bare feet, and I detest
being told what to do by corrupt authority. Most of all I detest the American Dream: the cars and the
lawns and the chemicals and the vaccines and the insurance policies and the public schools and the
pharmacies and the “support the troops” and the mass media and TVs and Hollywood and professional
sports and the “ask your doctor” and the whole smorgasbord of garbage that now passes for an
existence.
Concerning the doctor/pharmacy thing, I don't believe I have mentioned in any of my papers the extent
of my avoidance of all that. Not only do I not have any health insurance (or want any), I don't have a
doctor or a pharmacy. I was thinking about that a few nights ago. I have never had a doctor as an adult,
which I have to think is pretty rare. I have only been to a doctor a handful of times in 40 years. Twice
for vague symptoms in the past 25 years, which they told me were nothing or tried to give me anti-
anxieties for. I only went in because my mother wanted me to. Another time she wanted me to test for
lead poisoning, which came out negative. Before that I have to go back to college to think of a doctor
or hospital. I had a testicular torsion when I was 19, having to go to the hospital for emergency surgery
to correct it. That was caused by cycling a lot. I haven't been in a hospital since then. When I crashed
my motorbike in 2017 I refused the ambulance and the hospital and didn't even take aspirin. I just
worked it off at home on my own. I also haven't had any prescriptions since I was a kid. I can
remember being on penicillin a couple of times, but not since I was 20. I used to go to the dentist about
every five years to have my teeth cleaned, but I finally bought some tools and now do it myself. So I
never had a dentist, either. When I went he just scraped some stuff off the back of the bottom front
teeth and told me I did a good job brushing. Which I do. I have a good flossing toothbrush (SoFresh)
and I never miss a brushing. I also take vitamin C religiously for my gums. So the dentist seemed like
a waste of time and money. Plus I always had to fight to avoid x-rays. Most places now won't even
clean your teeth without x-rays, so I told them to take a leap.
That is what I mean by direct and personal. The Buddha or Confucius should have told you about a
good flossing toothbrush and exactly how to sleep tight.
So you see why I have zero trust in Aubrey de Grey and all the other doctors and computer scientists
who claim they are going to make us younger or healthier with nanobots or gene manipulation or
microchips or SENS. SENS is de Grey's program of reversing cell damage, and it means Strategies for
Engineered Negligible Senescence. You have to laugh. If de Grey knows how to reverse cell damage,
why isn't he partaking of that miracle? We can see with our own eyes it isn't working for him. While
my program of increased sleep and physical and spiritual alignment with Nature IS working. If I
weren't having to fight the entire world all the time, it would be working even better. If youth was my
one and only concern, I would immediately quit what I am doing and lower my stress levels by huge
amounts. But even while leading exhausting charges on many fronts, I have been able to continue to
age very slowly.
Mainstream science is not the answer here. Has health improved over the past 40 years, as computers
and their geeks have taken over? No, just the opposite. Death rates are rising, autism is exponential,
vaccines are killing millions, and the food supply is poisoned and on the edge of utter collapse. And it
is because we find peerage frauds like de Grey at the top of every field. These promoted “biologists”
like de Grey and his wife Adelaide Carpenter pose as experts while not knowing the first thing about
biology. And I mean that literally. The prime mechanism of Nature is life and death. Nature has
already solved de Grey's “problem” and he doesn't seem to realize it. The main short term way Nature
deals with cell damage is with sleep and food, but the long term solution is death and rebirth. The
cycle of biology. Nature gives up trying to restore cell damage and just replaces the whole organism
with a new copy: a child. A freshly minted being with zero cell damage. Brilliant, right? Yes, but
Modern people have forgotten that, especially beings of de Grey's sort.
And they forget to ask the begged questions: what if we did live to a thousand? What would that mean
for overpopulation? It would be catastrophic for all ecosystems, but these biologists can't figure that
out. What would it mean for babies? It would mean we couldn't have any anymore. We would lose all
those pure young bodies, giving us joy. And we would have no reason to have sex anymore, so we
could kiss all that goodbye as well. The trade-offs aren't looking so great anymore, are they?
No, all of de Grey's speeches and books about stopping aging altogether or living to a thousand were
always just pathetic and ridiculous. No one should even want that, and most people don't. Only people
pathologically afraid of death want that, and that is because they completely misunderstand life. They
are scared of death as they are scared of sleep, and for the same reason: their cabal has become utterly
detached from Nature. They have purposely divorced themselves from Nature, thinking to outsmart
her, and they fear that she has also divorced from them—though she hasn't.
They have the very odd notion that when the body dies, the spirit dies with it, and that is because they
don't understand spirit any more than they understand biology or Nature. Spirit—which is real—it is
made of real photons—the charge field—LIGHT—suffuses everything, not just human bodies but
animals, plants, rocks, air, water, stars, everything. That thing you call you isn't just your body, and it
isn't even just your spirit, in that you aren't just the photons that inhabit that body during your life. Yes,
there is something discrete that we call the temporary combination of your body and the spirit that
inhabits it, but more broadly you ARE the greater spirit that inhabits everything. It can't really be
divided off like that, since it is always connected to the greater field and greater body. Photons do not
die and the charge field does not die or even diminish, so the human concept of death is mainly an
illusion. Nothing ever dies, it just recycles. Not only will you come back, you won't ever leave, since
there is no leaving. You couldn't leave if you wanted to. It is not an option.
So how is it that we get so lost so fast here? If we are a piece of God, attached to the greater charge
field at all times through real lines, how can we so soon forget that? Well, it is a measure of just how
perverse our education system is, that we can turn happy children into confused monsters in just a
matter of a decade or two. And I say we, but I mean them: these Phoenicians like de Grey and his
cousins who run the world, and have run it for at least 4000 years.
Yes, we are back to that, since all roads lead back to it. To see what I mean, let's look up de Grey's
ancestry. Well, it is hidden at Wikipedia, where they don't give either one of his parents. Strange.
They say he didn't know his father. Doubtful. My assumption is he is from the famous Earls Grey,
which you probably know about from their teas. There are several Aubrey Greys of this line in the
peerage, including Major Aubrey Spenser Grey, b. 1929, and his father Commander Aubrey Douglas
Grey. So best guess is our Aubrey is a third, and added the “de” himself, to make more explicit his
nobility. He is Aubrey Jasper Grey, indicating a possible link to the Tudors. These Greys are closely
related to the Egertons and Cavendishes. Aubrey pretty much admits and embraces his Jewish
background with his beard, which he explicitly quotes from Leviticus. Telling me his mother may not
hide her Jewishness, being a Cohen or something like that.
If these are the right Greys, it also gives us links to Malta, since Aubrey's grandmother is from there.
We also have links through her to South Africa. More proof in the same direction, of course. Aubrey's
mother may be Jennifer Keyte, daughter of V. J. Keyte, OBE, Chief Transport Officer of Nyasaland
(later Rhodesia). There is some mystery about the Keytes in the peerage, since Dame Marion Keyte
Roe, MP, had some sort of title, and so did her daughter, the Baroness Couttie. But neither woman got
the title from her husband. So where did it come from? We don't know, they are scrubbed. Finally I
broke through that blockade. I found Charles Keyte of Warwickshire: his father was a Kyte and his
mother was a. . . Stanley, of Salford Priors. Just what we expected.
I remind you that the 3rd Earl Grey was Secretary of War under his cousin Lord Russell in the 1840s.
His father was the Prime Minister in the 1830s. One of Aubrey's cousins is Evelyn Baring, Baron
Howick, Governor of Rhodesia and Kenya during the Mau Mau suppression. All this helps in
understanding where Aubrey comes from, and therefore why he is so lost.
But let's leave Aubrey and go back to the question of sleep and advice. I will repeat what I have said
before: get rid of your foam pillows and other bedding doused in fire retarders (for example My Pillow)
and go all natural. The best way to do that is with wool. Do you know how easy it is to make your
own wool pillows? All you need is a pillowcase and some wool. Get the thickest organic pillowcase
you can find, because you are going to use that as your actual pillow. You can make your own there, if
you know how to sew, but the Lazy Man hack is just to use a thick pillowcase. Then you just need
some wool. Get it from a local rancher or buy a bag online, at ebay or somewhere. Then stuff your
pillow to your desired firmness and close it up with a needle and thread. If you have a sewing machine
or a friend with one, great, but you don't even need that. Anyone can use a needle and thread. Hide
your ragged sewing job inside a nice pillow case and no one will know the diff. You can make your
own mattress in the same way, though of course it isn't as easy. To start you need a thicker fabric to
stuff, like a canvas dropcloth. And you need a lot more wool.
While I am on the subject I will tell you a few more health hints. I have had many requests for that
since the last paper on it. Avoid air fresheners. Avoid dryer sheets and fabric softeners. Don't use
soap with perfumes or dyes. Switch to Dr. Bronners. Switch to an organic shampoo, one without SLS
or other fake bubblers. You don't need all that foam and it is bad for you. I use Carina Organics. I
always wash my hair in cold water. Don't use sunscreen, it is bad for you. Just wear hats and long
sleeves and stay out of the direct sun from 10 to 2 if you have pale skin. Get a little sun everyday to get
your vitamin D, but don't layout just to get tan. Anything beyond a light golden is bad for you if you
are a blondie. Moisturize everyday, but be very picky about your moisturizer. I make my own with
aloe vera and organic oils like argan, coconut, and jojoba. Darker people may prefer olive oil. Avoid
plastic coffeemakers: running boiling water through plastic is not a good idea. I just use a metal cone.
Don't use bleached coffee filters. Buy the brown ones. Don't use a plastic cutting board. Always use
wood and disinfect it often. Boiling water is the best way, or just buy a new one. They are cheap, so
consider them disposable. Don't use plastic plates or utensils. In general, avoid all plastics. Don't buy
stuff at the market that is overpackaged. You don't need everything—or anything—boxed in plastic
shells. Get your meat from a butcher that wraps in unbleached paper, or request it.
Don't use deodorants or antiperspirants. If you have a problem in that direction, spot wash more often
and change undershirts more often. If you have to use something, use Tom's or one of the other natural
ones. The mainstream ones are toxic. Also consider changing your diet. Also consider taking a
European view of the subject. They aren't as afraid of smelling like humans over there, as long at it
isn't taken too far. I personally am more offended by nasty perfumes than I am by a little body odor,
since the former is toxic and the latter isn't. Admittedly I don't have to deal with either one much, since
I am rarely around people.
Don't use weed killer. Hoe them or leave them alone. Don't use bug killers. Leave the wasps alone
and they will leave you alone. Same with ants, which I have never had cause to attack. But if you do,
do it without poisons. Get an armadillo. Don't use exterminators, unless you want to die soon. Find
another way. Maybe Borax. If it is that bad, maybe you need to move. Move north.
If you have to paint anything, avoid spray paints. Always brush it on if you can, and look for less toxic
paints. Clean up with turpentine instead of mineral spirits. Alway be aware of what you are breathing
and which way the wind is blowing. Have the wind at your back. Be on highest alert whenever
sanding, unless you are sanding raw wood. Don't take any jobs where you have to do a lot of sanding.
These are the jobs we need robots doing.
OK, enough of the mundane advice. Let's go deeper and return to the spiritual. Another thing I think
the sages could have been clearer on is the works versus grace question. I have previously told you I
would have more to say on this, and now is the time. Although grace and works are both true and
important, I am as sure of this as much as anything: works should be primary in any talk of how things
are. Why? Because grace is something God does, not you. It therefore doesn't help you to talk about
grace. That is God's side of the question. You can't even know who has grace and who hasn't, so it can
only muck up the question from our side. Your side of the question is determined by works.
But it is even worse than that, because the whole idea of grace is counter-productive. It has given
many people the idea that works don't matter. What matters is being one of God's favorites, for reasons
only he knows. These people get caught in a downward spiral and figure it is God's will. He is giving
others more grace. It encourages resignation or hopelessness.
See for example this page, which is the first one that comes up at Bing on the question of grace. From
top to bottom it is either a muddle or a contradiction. It isn't helpful at all. We are told grace is mercy,
not merit, which may be true but unless it is a general love by God, it isn't helpful in a spiritual sense.
And if it is just a general love by God, then it isn't what grace was historically and isn't helpful anyway,
since it is just a squishy concept with no real content. It doesn't help you decide what to do in any real
event. We can see the authors on this page are watering down the concept of grace for a modern
audience, turning it into another platitude or tautology. When it transcends this blather, it is even
worse:
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon
me.
That is a quote from Corinthians, and is obviously not Paul at his best. Did he really think Christ
would be impressed by boasting of ones weaknesses, in hopes of gathering more grace? Does anyone
really think that is the way it works?
The quotes by Biblical “scholars” are even worse, being either empty or unfounded, as where Max
Lucado says “Grace is God's best idea”. How would he know? I would think only God can judge
God's ideas. And Elaine Heath's quote is contradictory:
The five means of grace are prayer, searching the Scriptures, the Lord's Supper, fasting, and
Christian [fellowship].
Those are all works, not grace. There are no “means of grace”, by definition. If grace is not of merit,
then you can't earn it, can you? You can't even earn it on opposite day, like Paul, being as meritless as
possible on purpose and boasting about it.
Not only is grace not God's best idea, it is among the worst ideas of man. It has bred nothing but
confusion, maybe on purpose. Anytime it goes beyond a general belief in God's love, it turns to crud.
That is because when it exceeds that idea, it goes beyond any real human knowledge. God's grace is
his own, and we can know nothing about it, other than that it does seem to exist. We do seem to be
cared for and few of us seem to deserve it.
This is also terrible to find on that page at Christianity.com:
We live in a world of earning, deserving, and merit, which result in judgment. That is why everyone
wants and needs grace. Judgment kills. Only grace makes us alive.
What? That isn't Biblical, much less Christianity. Did Christ ever teach that God's judgment kills?
What part of the Bible is that supposed to be from? That is just Modernism posing as Christianity.
You will say it is here:
Judge not lest ye be judged.
But that is people judging one another, meaning damning one another. Jesus said we don't have that
power. Only God can judge us. But Jesus wasn't talking to God, telling him not to judge us. God's
judgment doesn't kill, it defines everything. As far as giving structure and meaning to life, it is God's
judgment that does that, not his grace.
What is wanted on this question, as on all others, is specific advice. That or comforting belief in order.
Which is why the answer should all be about works. Although you may not deserve God's love, you
should nonetheless do your best to deserve it. We can be sure he will not be impressed by those
bragging about how little merit they have—those who, like Uriah Heep, are all false humility.
Although we are all sinners, which means we make mistakes, you can be sure we aren't here just to
make mistakes and be forgiven. We are here to grow into better and larger people, and it is expected
will we make a best effort to do that. That is your spiritual “job” above all others.
How do I know? Because that is what the words mean. Again, it is definitional, as it so often is. The
words tell you themselves. We can get that even from the muddled words on the grace page. There we
read of lack of merit and forgiveness. If God didn't expect you to do any better, he wouldn't have to
forgive anyone their trespasses, would he? There would be no idea of trespasses or forgiveness, since
he would just expect everyone to be a total loser. Forgiveness only has meaning in a world where
people are trying to do the right thing. Otherwise Paul could pray, “Dear God, please don't forgive me
anything, because I want as many demerits as possible, to earn more grace.” Do you see how idiotic
that is? If God forgives a trespass, that means it no longer counts against you. The converse being that
until he does forgive it, it does count against you, which means you shouldn't have done it. Which of
course means you should try not to do it again. Stop making so many mistakes! Learn. Otherwise
you would be tempting the Lord your God. You would be testing him: “Can you forgive this? How
about this?” You aren't supposed to do that, remember. You aren't supposed to test him, you are
supposed to obey his laws. The Ten Commandments, remember? The Last Judgment, remember? If
you are going to pretend that “judgment kills” just to make things easier on yourself, you may as well
give up pretending to be a Christian, or a spiritual person of any stripe. Just be a Modern blob and be
done with it.
No real religion ever invented or revealed taught that judgment kills, because that idea isn't useful to
anyone. It is only useful to the Modern governors, who want you as debilitated as possible, so that you
can't rise up and toss them out on their butts, creating a real world where these monsters were not
qualified to rule.
You will ask why I am talking about Christianity here. Obviously because I am tailoring my comments
to my audience. I am not suggesting you have to become a Christian, I am just delivering my comments
in common Western terms. Those from other backgrounds can easily translate my points into their
own system. Other major religions don't have this idea of grace, which I would say is fortunate for
them, but they all have an idea of judgment. Judgment in that sense is just a measure of order, and as
such is a wholly good thing.
Even on the human level it is a good thing. The plea that we not judge eachother is absurd, since we
must do it regardless. No, we shouldn't damn one another to hell, but we have to judge everything in
order to get on. We have to judge whether the day is sunny or cloudy, hot or cold. We have to judge
whether the bathwater is too hot for the baby. We have to judge whether that school is qualified to
teach our children. We have to judge whether that person is right for us as a mate. We have to judge
whether that color shirt looks good on us, or whether those shoes are attractive or make us walk funny.
Life is one long judgment of everything, ourselves and other people included, and it is all good. We
should have high expectations of ourselves and others, because if we don't we will surely settle into the
low expectations. And we have. We don't need less judgment, we needs a hell of a lot more, and
quickly, lest we crater altogether. No, not the damning, wrathful judgment of an old preacher, but
surely the unyielding judgment of citizens and parents who have had enough of the planned corruption
and dissolution of Modern society. Reversing that requires firm judgment and a sure sense of what is
right and what is wrong. It requires a belief in goodness and rightness, and a detailed and unwavering
sense of exactly what that entails.
In some ways the relaxed standards since the 1950s have been sensible. We need rules but we don't
need a lot of meaningless ones. There is no reason all men had to have the same haircuts, as just one
example. We look back on hippies being called “long hairs” with mystification, since what did it
matter how long their hair was? Stuff like that is just petty bullshit. We don't need judgment of that
sort. On the other hand, the expectation that kids would actually learn something in school was a
reasonable one. That is why they call it “school”, after all. Maybe if we didn't let the military
constantly terrorize them with drills and the perverts discombobulate them with drag queen story hours
and a constant trannie salute, they might actually have time for classes. Anyway, I am in Matt Walsh
territory now and I like to remain unique, so I will move on.
My point was that judgment is a good thing. Not a petty tyrant sort of judgment, of course, but a
demand that the world not be allowed to fall into chaos. A demand that sensible laws and mores
continue to exist and continue to be enforced. People need to demand far more discipline from
themselves and others, and judgment is the way that is done.
I know because one way I got here is by having a lot of discipline. Not a military, get up early and
salute the flag discipline, obviously; but a useful, non-petty sort of discipline that accomplishes a lot in
the long run. A discipline that has allowed me to ignore the inessential while focusing on the essential.
You have seen examples of it in this paper: never missing a brushing, for instance. I take very good
care of my teeth and gums, and that takes discipline. I always get my sleep. I never pull all-nighters,
for any reason. I never get drunk. I never overeat. I do not allow myself to have an addictive
personality. As a teen, I veered off into OCD a bit, but I broke that on purpose. I recognized it and
resisted it. I let unimportant messes sit for days or weeks, telling myself they weren't worth wasting
time on. That has been very useful to me over the years, since it has allowed me to put all my energy
where it belongs, on things that matter most.
One trick I have used to do that is to pretend I am reading about myself in a book in the distant future.
I ask myself, will anyone care about that? Will anyone care if my stovetop was dirty? Or I look back
on someone like Leonardo. Does anyone care how much money he had in the bank? Does anyone care
if he had weeds in his yard? No, they care about the paintings and the notebooks. They care about
what he said and did that was important. The rest is not worth losing sleep over. It fades away quickly.
So I expect people to judge me, and want them to, I just know they will not judge me on weeds or
stovetops.
You may answer me, “But will they care if your gums were healthy? Will they care that you got your
sleep? Van Gogh was far more focused on the essentials than you, my friend!” Yes, and Van Gogh
died at 37 in misery. Nothing prevents further good works like being dead. I love Van Gogh, but no
rational person would set him up as a paragon of good judgment. If I had died at 37 almost nothing I
have done would have gotten done. My Muses knew this and guided me from a young age.
OK, let's wrap this up by coming down from on high and hitting the physical again. One thing that
helps in those pictures under title is that, being a portrait painter, I know how to light a portrait. I know
how to look my best in a portrait. I will give you my secrets for free, so that you can get the best
portraits of yourself. To start with, never use a flash when taking pictures of people. It will make them
look their worst. You have to set the camera on M, manual, and use floodlights. Not necessarily
expensive floods, just bulbs in silver cones, which you can get at the hardware store for cheap. Use
bright bulbs, 100-150W, and don't use the regular old yellow ones. If they even make those anymore.
Use color corrected or halogens, something that will give you the whitest light. Light from both sides,
but more on one side. I used two lights on my good side and one on the other side. Back the lights off
six or eight feet, so they don't wash you out, and light from above, never below. If you don't have
lightstands you can use anything else, including broomsticks leaning against chairs. The other big trick
is to use the right lens. You don't want the camera too close to you, since that will distort your face.
You need to be backed off about ten feet, which means your focal length will be about 70 to 90 instead
of the common 55. In other words, your lens is longer. Not telephoto or zoom, but medium length. If
you are using a tripod, you don't have to worry about shutter speed, your camera will choose one. But
if your friend is taking the pics, she needs to check that the shutter speed is at least 60. Otherwise
camera shake may cause blurry pics. Just look on the screen and it will tell you what the speed is. If it
says something like 8 or 15, you need more light. Add another bulb on your good side. If you are
using a tripod, you just set the camera to delay, which will give you about ten seconds to get into
position after you push the button all the way down. Of course all this is assuming you are using a real
camera, not a phone. I can't tell you how to do anything with a phone. I can barely make a call.
So, what if I die tomorrow of a heart attack or something? Will that negate everything I have said
here? Not at all. It will just mean the Phoenicians have finally poisoned me somehow, after years of
trying. Up to now my Muses and my own white magic have countered all curses and poisons, but who
knows how long that will last. Or the Muses may decide to recall me for their own reasons. No one
knows the times and the seasons, and I go where called.
*Some say, “Why do you keep trying to build yourself up?” Um, maybe because so many are trying to tear me
down? Try imagining yourself in my position. I don't think you can possibly conceive of the mountain of
personal and impersonal attacks I face everyday, starting with Google and other government censorship,
character assassination, blacklisting, paid trolling, outright slander and libel, and lakes of envy, jealousy, and
sour grapes. Remember, I am very much NOT a guru, surrounded by supporters kissing my hems. I am a guy
living out in the middle of nowhere alone, doing all I do while trying desperately to keep my head above water.
My enemies claim I am stroked by my legions of fans, who further shine my gigantic ego. But although that
helps a little, it is pretty much meaningless day-to-day, since they aren't here. I don't know them or see them.
For a visual and tactile person like me, it is all misty and formless. Besides, my personality was set long before
any of this happened: decades of absolute crickets, when no one believed in me but me. Decades of rejection
letters from galleries, publishers, museums, magazines. Decades of poverty. Decades of being told I couldn't do
this or shouldn't do that. Decades of being told my art was passe. Decades of being surrounded by small, petty
people whose greatest wish for me was that I immediately “get small”, so I didn't make them feel small. Has
anyone ever wanted me to get bigger and better, as I have wished for you (and not just wished it, I have given
you—for free—the means to achieve it)? No, never. I saw it in their eyes. They didn't wish me success, they
wished me failure—they said to teach me humility—but it was really to keep me from growing beyond their
control. That is Modernism in a nutshell: crushing souls and hiding it behind humility or equality. Which is
why I have devoted my life to countering Modernism in all its heinous forms. It is why I finally fled into the
wilderness and decided to encourage myself to get as big as I could get. I broke everyone else's reins and let
myself roam free, without saddle or bit. So now here I am, a monster according to some, a myth for others, a
golden unicorn for others. But in fact, I am none of those things. I am just a guy trying to get through the day,
while also trying to find some way to take on even more light. At some point, yes, I may believe in myself to
such an extent I no longer have to build myself up or defend myself. Absolute clarity and confidence. But I'm
not there yet. Are you? Woe betide the governors if I ever do.