(Images provided by DWB)

“I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.” – Bob Dylan

The person in these pictures is a poet in action.

She’s a poet and she does know it, but she does not show it, at least not in any overt kind of way (or hardly ever).

She’s 18 now, recently graduated from high school (she went to Hemingway’s high school), and she tried the poet clubs and poet readings at the school.

But she couldn’t really stand any of them.

Because she is horrified by any sort of insincerity. She can even feel it approaching before it’s there. For her, insincerity is akin to the proverbial fingernails screeching across a chalkboard. For her, most formal poetry readings and poet gatherings and poet clubs, and so forth, have the same sincerity value as Amber Heard’s testimony at the Johnny Depp trial which she, like her father, could not stand watching because of how blatantly insincere, false, and totally FAKE it obviously was.

(We were watching the trial because we’re Johnny Depp fans, big ones. And even though I couldn’t stand watching Amber make a fool of herself, or maybe because I couldn’t stand watching her make a fool of herself, she reminds me very much (physically included) of someone I once knew (and dated, and almost married), a stage actress and theater professor from Chicago, Illinois, which has more theater than any other place in the country except NYC).

To be a professional academic poet in the USA of today, one has to give professional poetry readings, and attend professional poet gatherings, and join poetry clubs, 99.999% of which have about as much sincerity as the testimony of Amber Heard at the Johnny Depp trial.

Hemingway, as a famous writer, was terrified of formal public speaking, so much so that he rarely, or never, did it.

Bukowski, Hemingway’s most famous direct heir, gave the greatest poetry readings of any poet in American history.

He could hold an audience of hundreds in the palm of his hand for hours. Almost literally.

And yet he hated doing it – hated it unto the death; because he said it made him feel like a fake, a freak, and a fraud.

The person in these pictures is a poet, but she almost never shows it, not in any overt way. (Although if you’re a sensitive human who’s a good judge of character and an artist, or artistically inclined, you may be able to tell it from a single glance.)

(Images provided by DWB)

“You’ll find it when you stop looking.” – D.W. Barrigar

At 18, she doesn’t quite know it yet, but the way she walks, the way she talks, the way she thinks, and the way she acts all indicate one thing: writer.

Just who and what a writer is now is undergoing great flux and change, great challenges and readjustments. It’s been happening very dramatically since around the year 2000. We live in a period of rapid and sudden uncertainty, and we, of course, don’t know how things will pan out.

Edgar Allan Poe, it’s often said, was the first American writer who actually tried to make a living from his pen and nothing but his pen.

He failed miserably, had to work mostly as an editor instead, and died in the gutter because of it.

Before that, it wasn’t as if America didn’t have writers. Most people wrote and read letters, for instance, every day. (If they were “illiterate,” they dictated their letters and had letters from others read aloud to them from someone around them who could read and write.) It was simply the case that making a living as a creative writer was fairly unheard of. There were zero copyright laws at that time, among other reasons, many other reasons.

Geoffrey Chaucer, of England, author of the Canterbury Tales, is considered the first actual, individual author in the English language, in the modern sense. (Rome and other societies had their own versions much earlier than that.)

And making a living as a writer, as nothing more than a writer, never crossed Chaucer’s mind.

He had a million other jobs instead, while also completing the most lasting work in the English language outside of Shakespeare. And we all know how Shakespeare supported himself.

So even if she never publishes a word, and even as she also does other things, too, this is a writer in action – not tomorrow, not in a few years or decades, now.

America thinks everything is about money.

The best-seller mentality has poisoned the well of the minds of so many writers that many, or even most, of them have stopped writing seriously even as they still dream of writing.

I taught in the writing schools of the Midwestern USA for over twenty years, first as a graduate student, later as a professor and lecturer.

It gradually dawned on me that there was a mindset that was killing the creativity of many of my students.

Too many of them believed that if they didn’t become rich and famous writers overnight, then they weren’t writers at all.

And they quit doing it. They stopped writing. Because they thought the lack of instant “success” meant they weren’t good enough. So they bowed out, with embarrassed smiles on their faces. It was sad to see, sad that so many had (and still do) fallen for the lie. The big lie.

Writing, creative writing, is something you do if you’re called to it. Any outward success, or lack of so-called outward success, is never going to stop you if you’re a real writer.

We are all writers today, in many ways, inventing personas for ourselves, using words to text and email each other all the time every single day.

Jesus was a writer, even though he never wrote a word, except one known time, with his finger in the sand.

But who told more lasting, wide-ranging stories than he did? Short stories, usually very, very short stories, so powerful they turned him into the most famous human being who’s ever lived or ever will live – bar none. It was his words that did everything, including bringing back the dead. (“Lazarus, come out!”) And that makes him a writer. He was never paid a pittance for it, not even a single cent, ever, not even one time.

(He was never directly paid, but he was given free food, lodging, and wine from his audiences and hearers.)

The person in these pictures is a writer in action, even if she doesn’t quite know it yet, even if she never “publishes” a word.

“Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s free,” wrote Kris Kristofferson.

(Cool images provided by DWB)

(Co-Ed note–We once again proudly present another high quality and brilliant “fictional essay” by Co-Editor Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar. This is extra special because it makes its world debut, right about…now!–LA)

“Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” – Hemingway

DISCLAIMER: The advice in this essay isn’t for everyone.

It’s up to the Reader to decide whether you’re one of those this was meant for, directly, indirectly, or not at all.

Part One.

In private notes that were discovered and released after his death, the great psychologist Carl Jung pointed out that there are two ways of consuming drugs, i.e. (in this case) illegal substances, or alcohol (a hardcore drug if there ever was one).

The first way involves bombing out your mind, becoming numb, killing your spirit, getting wasted, forgetting about life, escaping your responsibilities as a human among humans and other living things, and so forth.

This is the mode that gets all the press in the modern US, even with (or especially with) two revered comedians such as Mr. Cheech and Mr. Chong.

But the second way, much less popular and much less talked about and much less believed in, too, is much different.

And the second way can be called the true way.

The second way is the way of the shaman, the way of the mystical monk or nun, the way of the spiritual seeker.

The second way was and is the way which can be symbolized by seven representative American writers (at their best, only at their best), none of whom died shockingly young from drugs or anything else, except Kerouac (at 47): William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bob Dylan (among many other heroes).

The first way involves deadening yourself – putting yourself to sleep.

The second, much less popular way, involves a search for enlightenment, the seeking after an awakening, the belief in greater human possibilities of the imagination, the longing for unity, the knowledge that deliberately changing your consciousness (temporarily) (and being out on the edge) can lead to a change for the better in Consciousness – permanently; when done right (only when done right).

In this formulation, for example, and which I can very much attest to personally, the use of marijuana can make you feel two ways.

One: tuned out, drugged out, apathetic, tired and with the munchies.

Two: Awakened, heightened, more alive, more ambitious, more energized, more open, more adventurous, more bold, more spiritually attuned at every level, hungry for more life and not just mere food.

This essay is about pursuing the use of drugs for the second mode.

It should surprise none of us that in America, Land of the Vulgar, the first, bad way of using weed (and other substances) is the one that gets all the press.

After all, we’re also the ones who proudly elect the worst (or best) snake oil salesman in history to be our supreme leader.

But there is, as Carl Jung pointed out, another way, a way Jung secretly called (knowing it would be released later) “sacred pharmacology.”

A way that, despite its sacredness, or because of it, can very much get you in big trouble or even “ruin your career” (which is one massive reason why Jung never released his research on drug use while he lived; he saw what had happened to Freud and cocaine and had the same rational self-protective instincts of a Galileo, or anyone in their right mind).

Part Two.

In another essay, as a sequel to this one, I will list and briefly discuss the first time I ever tried every drug I’ve ever done and where I was when that happened and who I was with (if I was with anyone), starting with coffee and ending with magic mushrooms, sometimes known as psilocybin, which are being widely tested now by Western science for their medicinal properties. (They can also have properties that feel the very opposite of medicinal, depending on your mood, take it from humble yours truly, and still known today among the youth of America as “a bad trip.”) Warning: discussions of hard drugs like crack cocaine, cocaine, LSD and certain opioids (no needles) will be included in this future essay.

Needles will not be included because I’ve never used needles. I’ve never used needles because all my experiments have been deliberate, and even careful, if it’s possible to use something like LSD or crack cocaine in a careful way (and, at least partly, it is possible, say I).

I won’t talk about alcohol in this list, which is the drug I have the most lifelong experience/s with, by far. (This topic is and will be further covered in greater detail in other essays.)

I also won’t talk about (for the most part) prescription drugs like Depakote and other bipolar medications which have been a big part of my life since 2015, since they aren’t generally what are known as “recreational” drugs (although there can be some serious cross-over here with things like Gabapentin and benzodiazepines).

And the term recreational, for me, is a big part of the problem.

When I use drugs, it is never for recreation at all, just as I never take vacations.

Whenever I travel anywhere, even if it’s just down to the corner again, I think of it as a small journey that’s part of the long journey of life itself – not a vacation.

I’m 58 now (born in 1967, three months before the Summer of Love).

I’ve done so many drugs in my life that I’m sure I’ll be forgetting a few of them, despite the list I’ve made ahead of time by hand before I type it whenever that happens.

This essay doesn’t talk much about ADDICTION, either, which is a separate topic, and one of the possibilities when you play with fire.

But, again, it’s possible to play with fire in a careful way and it’s possible to play with fire in a reckless way that isn’t careful at all.

There is nothing in this world that isn’t dangerous, even traveling down to the corner, even taking a shower, even boiling water for tea (or especially all of the above).

You avoid the danger as much as you can but NEVER to the point where your life is paralyzed (or even well-nigh nonexistent) with fear.

Because we are given life by the Universe (for me it’s God) in order to live life and not living life (in a genuine and authentic way where you actually try, or Don’t Try, as Bukowski said, which amounts to the same thing) is the greatest sin of all.

Sometimes quality is more important than quantity, too.

What good is it if you live to be a hundred and ten and were one of the most boring people to ever walk the Planet, even (or especially) to yourself?

If you already have visionary or artistic tendencies (often but not always the same thing), taking drugs sometimes, in the right way, can enhance your visions, especially in the middle of this sickeningly over-civilized, overly-tame, overly-sheltered, overly-comfortable (for far too many of us) world we’ve created.

Drugs actually aren’t The Way but they can be a ticket to the way just like Dr. Hunter S. Thompson claimed they could be.

He was right about Nixon, he was right about the death of the American Dream, and he’s right about this, too.

Enhanced visions lead to spiritual expansions and augmented consciousnesses (plural) within yourself, and greater imagination, memory, and intelligence, too – not just the munchies.

And the dizziness of having your worldview turned upside down in an instant can be liberating, especially when it happens frequently.

The effect/s are cumulative, for the most part; and it’s a process, a road, a path, a way, not a destination: and getting stuck in a rut is to be avoided whenever you can.

Part Three.

I started attending Wheaton Central High School in Wheaton, Illinois, USA, almost exactly five months after John Belushi, the great comedian and actor, died.

It was Belushi’s high school and it sometimes seemed like his name and even his picture were everywhere in the halls.

And we were lost suburban teenagers of the Ronnie Raygun 1980s who looked to Belushi as a hero not because he was funny or because he died of a drug overdose (with needles) at the Christological age of 33, but because he was a rebellious spirit at his core.

As one of the Blues Brothers, at least half the time he wasn’t funny at all (very much on purpose), but he was never not a rebel.

It was as if we were trying to resurrect the rebel spirit of the 1960s without even knowing we were doing so, and experimentation with drugs and alcohol were a huge part of all that.

Living with a purpose (if undefined so far), driving hard until you were out on the edge (and then hopefully reining yourself in), and making an impression on all the conformist dolts crowding our world (no matter their age or status otherwise) were all the name of the game.

It takes a Houdini-like delicacy and balance, the strength and fortitude of Hercules, the wisdom of Athena, the fearlessness of Achilles and the alertness of Odysseus.

And we learned that if you try hard enough without trying you can turn yourself into none other than a Chosen One.