The Course of My Chosen Profession

Before we go any further down this path and get into the fundamentals of the Economics of Happiness, I feel it pertinent to give you a little background into the wordsmith that is trying to fashion these parameters of enjoyment and bliss and develop a plan through which we can all enjoy a life of greater abundance and joy. If you’ve seen me around town, riding around with a lil’ blue wagon, or have heard my story, you may imagine that I am operating under auspices of questionable sanity or drug-induced delusions. While I will neither confirm nor deny any rumors or judgments, I do feel that I have a pretty good idea about what it takes to be happy.

When I was diagnosed with what is commonly referred to as Attention Deficit Disorder at the age of 29, it came at a time when I had all but let go of the evangelical religion that had guided my teenage years and was trying to find a way to fit into this society. Although my thought processes seemingly deemed me as neurologically disordered, I came across the writings of Thom Hartman, who not only put a positive spin on my condition with his book ADD: A Different Perspective, but also enabled me to take another look at my faith through his book The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century. So with the much more empowering idea that the influx of people who thought the way that I did might actually be the precursor to an evolutionary step for an ailing civilization and the affirmative understanding that we are all One spiritually, I set out to use the gifts at my disposal to search for a way that they could be used as more than an excuse for why I couldn’t cut it in mainstream society.

After shooting what would later become a documentary about my dealing with ADD, I took a year and a half to travel the country by car, hitchhiking and motorcycle, to explore the nation’s underbelly, seeking out lifestyles outside of the mainstream that might yet be more beneficial in seeking the future we desired beyond the mindless work/produce/consume mentality that had become the status quo. Inspired in part by Jack Kerouac’s vision of the Rucksack Revolution in his book The Dharma Bums as well as the call of Christ to simply have faith in universal provisions and love my neighbor as myself, I set out in the hope to find a new direction, not only for myself, but for the world community I loved so dearly. The result was a book of discovery I called The Rucksack Letters.

After a year and a half of continuing to cultivate my creative gifts as a writer and performer while living on Los Angeles, I returned to Sarasota and started to put my talents into practice. Yet while my vagabond lifestyle had given me the unflinching understanding that a life of purpose and happiness could be found outside the mainstream status quo, I was still struggling with how to bring my two realities together. It was then that two more concepts were introduced to me that have helped me take my personal journey to a place where it is more amenable to being shared and offering a course by which, I believe, we as a people can steer.

 

Photo by Jessi Smith

By aligning a number of the paradigms I have studied through my journey, I realized that there was a thread of truth that ran through all of them. As is common in the ego-based mindset that causes so much of the conflict in our varying cultures, we tend to latch on to the traditions we are given as the highest form of truth. Whether it be a religious structure or a philosophical breakdown, when we find a truth that speaks to us, we have a propensity to see that truth as better than any others… we erroneously deem our truths as Truth. However, when I aligned these various truths, these pathways to higher consciousness that people use, I realized that the greater Truth is that we are all on the same journey, what I call The Unbroken Path. Basically, as Thom Hartmann wrote in The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century, We Are All One.

Joseph Campbell said that it is important to move past the metaphors of our traditions in order to realize the truths that they point to. He also said that what the world needed was a new mythology. On both a personal level and on a level of creative expression, I believe that this Unbroken Path gives us the ability to transcend our own cultural differences and open up to the greater responsibility of manifesting the Truth within them.

In a similar fashion, I have been developing a new economic system that I call the WeBMaP. Based upon the idea that the four natural elements of water, air, earth, and fire are mirrored in the human aspects of heart, mind, body, and spirit, the concept sets up a more integral approach to not only finding balance in one’s personal life, but also has technological applications for utilizing monetary currency and directing the flow to attend to the four societal structures of artistry, business, citizenry, and community.

Both of these projects are still in their infancy, but have deep roots that I have been cultivating over the last decade and have manifested in my recent art installation The Labyrinth of the Unbroken Path.

 

¨The Labyrinth of the Unbroken Path¨
Photo by Arielle Monaghan

Last year, realizing that my community was still struggling over making many of the antiquated machinations we’ve developed over the years work in these changing times, I realized once again that there was more to creating an abundant life than merely working within the status quo. So, in order to let life flourish as it must, unhindered and unforced, I gave up on the use of our flailing financial system, ostracizing myself from the man-made in exchange for the more eternal, and sought for a better way. I’ve been mostly smiling ever since.

During my stint of moneylessness, I was formative in creating Sarasota’s first alternative currency system, the Common Wealth Time Bank through a partnership with Transition Sarasota. The online infrastructure allows Sarasota and Manatee residents to use their time, services, talents, and skills as currencies beyond the limitations of the monetary system to help ensure that our core economy is cared for and fully realized. Through the time bank, I’ve also managed to help start the Garden Brigade, aligning property owners who want gardens with gardeners that want to cultivate them, and am currently developing a community third space called the Flow Factory, where I am experimenting with alternative currencies for a variety of activities that I hope to incorporate into a shelter and school of life for Sarasota’s homeless.

While I am still technically “homeless” and cannot be considered a financial success under that old paradigm of the capitalist ideals, I have realized must stronger community ties, greater abundance of creative flow, and the vibrant reverberations of synchronicity on a daily basis. I am still on my journey, and may never reach that point of perfection sought by so many. However, I am thoroughly enjoying the educational process and the constant allowance of excellence that it affords me.

In the meantime, I continue to write, make music, produce videos, cultivate community, build cool stuff, eat good food, and work toward creating alternative forms of currency beyond the limitations set forth by the industrial mindset, doing my best to usher us into the revolution of Wisdom. And apparently, according to what the aliens told me, I’m supposed to help Sarasota become a marketing mecca. The most integral aspect of developing an Economics of Happiness is having a day filled with doing what you love with people you love.

 

Steve McAllister is the author of The Rucksack Letters and How to Survive an Estralarian Mind Meld. He posts regularly at InkenSoul.com, and sometimes posts at Anything Arts, Sarasota Music Scene, Sarasota Day and Elephant Journal, and is currently the Director of Operational Development for the Common Wealth Time Bank in Sarasota, Florida. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

Help Lay the Foundation of the Unbroken Path

Where will the path take you?

The Labyrinth of the Unbroken Path is entering into a new phase with the installation at this Year’s Harvey Milk Festival, and I could use some help in putting it together. This installation will feature walls made from pallets which will form an interactive maze where sojourners can leave messages for others who come behind them. The walls will then be installed as grow walls for an edible garden to be planted by and for Sarasota’s homeless community.

If you would like to be a part of this community-based arts initiative, there are a few roles that need to be filled in the next week and a half, building up to the festival.

1. Painters – each of the pallets are being painted different colors, and I need people to help get the colors on.
2.  Installers – this will include unloading the pallets from the trailer, assembling the Labyrinth, and screwing them into place.
3. Labyrinth guides – I need people to greet attendees and encourage them to fully participate in the experience during the festival.

4. Uninstallers – help taking the Labyrinth apart and packing it up.

If you are interested in being a part of this project, please email me at inkensoul@gmail.com.

Remembering Julia Seyffert

I met Julia Seyffert while I was living at the Bay Shore House. She was a sweet woman with a big heart. She was one of the people that opened her home to me and let me help her get organized. Some of her friends are hosting a memorial service that I cannot attend today, but I wanted to make sure that she is remembered fondly.

Her story, in my mind, is one of the great American tragedies. Marrying relatively late in life, a few years into their partnership, her husband Peter contracted cancer and subsequently dissolved the relationship within the year, dying at home in their bed. Within the year that followed, as she was dealing with the crushing blow of not only losing the love of her life, but also having to watch him whither away before her very eyes, Julia contracted cancer herself and lost both of her breasts. In the time that followed, Julia continued to fight with her cancer, but ultimately lost the battle and retired from this business of human suffering in April.

Despite her hardships, Julia was always ready with a smile and , until the cancer made her too fragile to squeeze, she gave incredible heartfelt hugs. In her last months, she was transferred to hospice and a nursing home due to her increasing weakness and growing dementia. Although she had a pretty good supply of pharmaceutical pain killers in the hospital, there were a number times she wanted to leave so she could simply go home and smoke a joint, what seemed to her to be the best treatment for combination of chemo and cancer.

Julia and I had many conversations about creating a collective of artists and citizens, and helping to develop new ways to meet people’s needs beyond continuing to empower an ineffective government to take on yet more responsibility that it can’t handle. In many respects, she was an incredible visionary, and it breaks my heart that she will be unable to participate in so many of the projects we discussed that are finally coming into manifestation. Julia and I had a very special relationship, and I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to know her while she was here.

Cherish those that share your life with you. We are all here for such brief glimmers of time. May we all shine as brightly as we can given the light that is within us, so that even when our lives are eventually dimmed, our spirits will shine on into eternity.

Participate in the Path of Pallets

Where will the Path take you?

At this Year’s Harvey Milk Festival, as we embrace the diversity of our community and realize our true wealth, we will be installing a very special edition of the Labyrinth of the Unbroken Path. We are looking for recruits to help compile and assemble the project.

The steps to be a part of this installation are simple:
1. Find a shipping pallet.
2. Paint it.
3. Bring it to the Flow Factory at 2035 Cornell Street.
4. Come to the Harvey Milk Festival and walk the Labyrinth of the Unbroken Path.

If you do not have paint, just bring a pallet and we’ll hook you up. If you have neither paint or pallet, but still want to be involved, we can hook you up there as well. If you just want to provide pallets, paints, or brushes, you will receive many hugs.

The day of the festival, we will also have paints and chalk on hand so that attendees can continue to paint on the palettes and continue to tell our collective story. For more information about how you can get involved, contact Steve McAllister atinkensoul@gmail.com.

The Rise and Fall of the America Experiment

Let me start by saying that I love America. Despite the red, white and blue shroud of pride which will most likely smother history’s grandest experiment in democracy via the conduit of unchecked capitalism,
it has been a bastion of ingenuity, a symbol of incredible independence, and still serves as the best place in the world to get a good cheeseburger.
Sadly, as most grand experiments do, the trials seem to be coming to an end with a mixed bag of results.

The experiment began under rather difficult conditions, rising from the rubble of tyrannical rule both from the British Empire, which seems to have ne’er fully recovered from the disastrous blow of losing control of such a prime piece of real estate, and the Holy Church, which maneuvered through the loss of religious control with a strong enough history of subconscious influence that many still believe that the foundation of the experiment is based on judeo-Christian ideology.
Nevertheless, the experiment began with nary a hitch as the documents for the proceedings were laced with the high ideals of affirming inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness through a government of, by, and for the people. Yet some 237 years later, we find ourselves at the end of the beta testing with the rights replaced by exploitation, indebtedness, and the pursuit of profit as the once sovereign concept of “people” has been altered
to refer to non-material entities governed by stock holders both with insatiable, mutated appetites. Yes, it has been a grand experiment, but somewhere along the way, something went very wrong.

It started out well enough. The project wasn’t meant to alarm the participants of its phallic nature of intrusion so it was given a feminine name based on a quite masculine explorer. Although the name of Amerigo Vespucci was not nearly as heralded as other explorers of his ilk, like Columbus, Magellan, and DeSoto, and though he lent none of his expertise to the geographical understanding of the real estate
that would bear his name, his techniques in the art of navigation and his discovery of the Amazon River’s mouth lent an air of subtlety to a project designed for covertly winding its way through the populous
in order to eventually overcome and dominate them.
For although the project was labeled as an avenue of empowerment of mankind, as the first fruit of the revolution of industry, the design was largely formulated to extend the reach of mankind’s greatest achievement to date, the development of a hierarchical wealth creation machine powered not exclusively by slave labor as in the past, but by the willing coercion of all involved.

The masterminds behind the America project found themselves with a golden opportunity to build upon hearts already swollen with pride over their triumphant escape from a religious system that was losing its ability to control the masses through its promise of a latent afterlife in exchange for subservience to its order in this one, and minds that were seeking for ways to establish their own kingdoms right here on earth.
Although “The American Dream” would not enter the lexicon of common usage for centuries to come, it was that very notion of supreme independence, a wall around every castle, which would both drive and fuel the America project by engaging the participants in an endless game of carrot and stick.
Just as the Church had engaged the participation of the masses for centuries before by denigrating them
to the point that they believed that their mere existence
was deserving of eternal punishment, perpetuating a disease so that they could provide a cure, the designers of the America project would build upon the participants’ independence from this fictionalized salvation system And their pride in overcoming it to spur them on to create imaginary kingdoms of their own.

By building upon this mythology of independence and inspiring the participants of the project to encase themselves in ever-increasing layers of desire as their illusions of separation expanded, the masterminds of the project could ensure that the participants would continually engage each level of the experiment as it unfolded. Fueling the flames of the participants’ pride
as their individualized kingdoms grew, insulating them
from the greater wealth of the whole by fostering a growing dependence on the industrial system of personal wealth accumulation, the masterminds of the America project were able to develop a series of smaller experiments, utilizing the time-tested tradition of competition as a catalyst for the increasing complexity of the experiment. However, as with all systems of growing complexity, the more complex things get, the more things can go wrong.

For although this fabricated “spirit” of America served to push the participants into deeper and deeper illusions of independence and separation, it also pushed them away from their natural capacities of compassion and cooperation. Inasmuch as this patriotism worked to develop the contours of the experiment to mythic proportions, because it also often diverted them from their natural inclination to collaborate and their intrinsic desire to serve one another, eventually Americans began to realize
the depth of their shared delusion and started working together to separate truth from illusion.

In the final waning years of the experiment, the participants suffered great grief over the loss of the system they had been trained to love so much. The pride that had been fostered in their hearts aided in the subconscious attachment of the participants’ egos to the operations of the experiment via some grand recalibration of the Stockholm syndrome. As the parameters of the experiment began to crumble around them, the participants denied the possibility
of the 237 year old country being anything less than eternal, expressed anger at being so incredibly duped and manipulated, bargained for new parameters to uphold the system to which they had become accustomed, and became largely depressed that the object of their unyielding affection had become nothing more than an idea whose time had passed.

Fully grieving their loss, the participants of the experiment rose from the abyss of despair to eventually start their own experimentations. With no more country to dictate the boundaries of their freedom, the participants were able to experience freedom in an all new way, beyond the conditional ramifications put upon it by the initial experiment. As the former Americans realized the power at their disposal to not only celebrate freedom, but also to celebrate responsibility, they began cultivating new methods of living in harmony with their fellow man and the living environment that surrounded them. Without the need to pledge allegiance and a portion of their income to a government that squandered both, they realized a new level of empowerment.

All in all, the American experiment offered a great many benefits to mankind through its meteoric rise and fall. Yet, as it rose in such an imbalanced way, building its foundation upon a hierarchical class system with the most unscrupulous of its lot in the upper echelon, just as with the tower built in Babel,
its fall was inevitable. However, although the system itself, as fallible as all other man-made systems, could not sustain integral amelioration of the principles it proffered in its initial documents, through over two centuries of acclimating the participants to the highest ideals of human connection, the values that it offered during its reign lingered on in the hearts and minds
of those affected by the project.

In spite of the eventual deterioration of the America experiment, the participants, now free to simply become citizens of the Earth, carried on
by celebrating life, sharing liberty, and pursuing happiness. As the Industrial Revolution rolled to a stop, the Information Revolution rolled their eyes open, and the test subjects awoke to the Revolution of Wisdom, they realized that their true power as human beings came from nowhere outside of them, neither from Church nor State, but from within. Although the United States of America played its role in sculpting the civilization through which it would proliferate the lopsided ideas of the industrial way of life throughout the rest of the world, in the end, it was the spirit of humankind, and its desire for interdependence
beyond the limitations of governmental and financial control that would ultimately shape human destiny for years to come.

On the Eighth Day, God Made Ganga

I think that on the Eighth Day, to ease into that whole Day of Rest thing, God made ganga. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t on the Eighth Day exactly, but since there don’t seem to be any other Omniscient, Omnipotent, All-Powerful, All-Encompassing Sources of All Being around here, I’m pretty sure that marijuana was created from the Supreme Divine Influencer of the direction of the Universe. Unless there’s some other unfolding of eternity that no one has told me about, I’m pretty sure that the Maker of All Things planted the seed for this weed. So the idea the the government of the United States of America continues to spend $20 Billion a year to prohibit the use of this plant, which has never caused a single human fatality and is actually the single-most beneficial and multi-purpose member of the Plantae kingdom on the planet, is a little bit on the extremely faithless, if not spit-in-your-face blasphemous side, and makes that whole “In God We Trust” deal the joke of the century.

What are Americans afraid of? Well, I shouldn’t say that. Recent surveys show that the majority of Americans actually favor the legalization of marijuana. Yet those that want to continue to pump billions of dollars worth of resources and manpower into eradicating God’s creation from God’s Creation still must be afraid of something in order to maintain such a ridiculously self-defeating activity.

Perhaps they’re afraid that everyone will get stoned and not pay attention to what’s going on around them anymore, and the economy will crash. Maybe everyone will get all doped up, get the munchies, and force large populations of the world into poverty. Maybe they’re afraid that if people start growing and smoking their own pot, they won’t need to buy other drugs, which will put a lot of legalized drug-pushers out of work, and they’ll just end up staying home and smoking the pot they start to grow, and we’ll all become a bunch of couch potatoes, covered over in green moss like Stephen King in that Creepshow movie.

Unfortunately, most people don’t pay attention to what’s going on around them anyway, the economy is already imploding, millions already live in poverty, and the majority of the world’s couch potatoes are already harvested right here in the good old U S of A. Perhaps, just perhaps, what we fear as the problem may just be part of the solution. Maybe, just by the simple redirection of energy from the prohibition of one thing and into the development of something else, we may be able to ease some of our suffering.

For instance, what if we were to redirect that $20 Billion that America spends on fighting against the natural resource of marijuana toward cultivating industrial hemp? What if we plant that industrial hemp, with its natural capacity to restore soil, on every mountain that has been leveled in the search for coal, every swamp that has been drained in the search for phosphate, and in every wasteland created by fracking so that we could work toward eradicating industries of catastrophe and toxic practices? What if, instead of promoting laws and businesses that destroy, we start aligning with the powers of creation?

I think that’s the way God would do it.

Can The Homeless Teach Us To Create Community?

The homeless situation in Sarasota has been stirring up quite a few stories as humanity’s ugly side has shown its face in Florida’s most wealthy city. However, as every problem comes with it’s own solution, we have the capacity and opportunity to tell new stories, and to work with those affected by this challenge to create new solutions that for the problems which face all of us, and truly realize the wealth at our disposal. This opportunity will not erase homelessness entirely, for there will always be nomads and vagabonds, but it will seriously address the issue, provide purpose-directed personal development for those in need of direction, cultivate creative resilience, and offer real-life lessons on how to build community.

When I arrived at the Homeless Focus Group that meets at City Hall every month, I was glad to see that Tom Barwin, our new city manager, was at the table giving us an update from his side of the hall. After Dr. Marbut, the man who has created a world class homeless rehabilitation program in Texas and consulted on many more around the country, visited Sarasota and got a brief glimmer of our situation, he put together a proposal for a three month research gathering mission in order to give us a workable plan that will help us handle our situation wisely, compassionately, and successfully. Currently, we are seeking to organize the affected organizations and departments in order to move forward.

In the meantime, the rest of us also discussed a 3.4 acre plot of land that the owner has recently allowed to be used as a place of refuge for the homeless. After a makeshift camp was recently built on Florida Avenue, where some have even been sleeping in the cemetery, the police have been directing the homeless to this location instead of sleeping in the streets. Sarasota has considered the possibility of a tent city in the past, but code enforcement has already laid siege on the property and forced all of the occupants to take down all of their tents and sleep with the mosquitoes and rain.

The next day, I was at WSLR to edit my audition show, but got caught up with Facebook and email, and missed my spot in the production studio. Fortunately, I passed my audition and have DJ training at the end of the month. However, while I was there, I overheard Joe Hendricks’ Local Flavor show and his interview with Vallerie, Nita, and Neta about their involvement with the homeless community, Dr. Marbut, and the challenge of this property. After the show, we were able to chat for awhile and make our Facebook connections.

When Misha stopped by for breakfast the following day, I told him about the property, and since it’s only a few hundred yards from the Flow Factory, I set him up in the lil’ blue wagon and took him over there. Vallerie and the girls were already there along with a few other people, and she quickly ushered us into the back of Bob’s car for a tour of Florida Avenue. Bob is a Longboat Key resident who wants to be a part of the solution, and as we rounded the cemetery and saw the fence draped with blankets and sleeping bags that flowed out onto the sidewalk, the residue of a people forced to wander, we all knew that a better solution was necessary.

We returned to the property and I was able to meet Brian, the police liaison for the homeless community. We talked a little about his role and the potential for a place of rehabilitation, not just a place to crash. We agreed that this property should not be managed by any law enforcement department, but as a community, we can use this opportunity to help create community.

While a tent city can serve as a temporary refuge, it is not necessarily conducive to helping people rebuild themselves from the ground up other than making them sleep on the ground. However, if we see this space as an opportunity for developing community, life skills, and creative resilience, we stand poised to help alleviate our immediate problem and create an avenue through which people can find healing, compassion, purpose, and a sense of participation in something bigger than themselves. Since the Commercial Intensive property is zoned for a variety of uses, including educational dormitories, we are seeking to develop the property into somewhat of an intentional community, offering temporary residents lessons in gardening, alternative home design, yoga, meditation, career development, and a number of other skills that can be utilized while integrating back into mainstream society.

Homelessness is a difficult issue to live through. Not only are there never-ending questions of survival, you must also deal with the issues of esteem, belongingness, and whatever challenges forced you into the situation in the first place. Although our ideology of independence drives us to believe that these people should be able to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps, the reality of it is that humans are a social species and need one another in order to develop a society. No one does it alone, and no one should be expected to.

We, as a community, stand on the precipice of creating a program of renewal for those in need of a new beginning and a fresh start. The homeless get shelter in a place where they are cared for and cultivated as valuable human beings, and Sarasota can be reborn as a place that honors dignity and helps to promote it in all of its citizens. Let us teach one another how to create community.