see what you want

I’ve been explaining to you—and by you I mean Dave and the occasional passerby—that we create the world with our attention.

Attention. That’s it. There’s no world separate from attention. We’re not just taking the universe in with our senses, we’re creating it instantaneously so we have something to actually take in.

It’s like a video game that doesn’t want to keep a bunch of expensive pixels on active service merely on the off chance that a player happens to see them. Instead, almost the reverse. When a player expresses interest by gazing, and by narrowing and enhancing the gaze, data floods in immediately.

See what you want. Best life advice you’ll ever get.

A force of evil blew through this town of ten-thousand souls in the coastal mountains here this week. Well, “evil.” Does it exist? Like, per se? If it did, then what happened here in town this week would be a good example, though with a touch of comedy. Not quite devil but rather devil-ish. Someone—no one seems to know who—ordered the destruction of all healthy trees on all the roads downtown. I’ve talked to scores of people and no one knows who ordered it and no one knows why. How’s that for a social contract? It’s a town that’s gotten rich enough from logging to have quite a nice downtown, but with a kind of poetic justice it turns out that it’s a simple matter for the town to self-destruct and destroy its entire stock of trees in a week.

This is the cold coast long studied by anthropologists for its potlatch—the people have traditionally been so rich in food and resources they would have occasional mass destructions of pretty much everything. If you’re going to be that lavishly destructive, wouldn’t it have been fun to leave lots of five-story stumps here in town that could be totemed up for totem tourism? But no. Log thyself. By poetic justice I don’t mean it has to rhyme, I guess. The clearcutting of downtown Terrace in northern British Columbia! What’ll they think of next?

As you know I never protest. Resistance is feudal. By feudal I mean that resistance insists on hierarchy. Insists that there’s a boss who is worth resisting. But in reality there is no boss. Obviously I’ve never voted. Pretending leaders exist works on the same principle as the creative gaze. You’re making it up. By pretending, you appoint a so-called leader, but a leader-appointer has more power than a leader so, ipso facto, there is no leader except you. External leaders cannot exist. Not ever, not once. Not in all the universe. It simply cannot happen.

You’re the master. It’s your show.

All suffering comes from the reluctance of the master. You. You are the One, and when you pretend you’re not, you suffer. The reluctant master. It’s pretty funny if you think about it.

I would never wave a placard at a politician or other pretend leader because there are no leaders. But I do like to say howdy to my fellow humans now and then. Mostly just for fun. Sometimes because there’s “an occasion.” The most practical social structure is not the state but the watershed, and the most practical way to get things done in the ‘shed is to talk to your neighbors face to face.

I brought my old Magnum hitch-hiking “magic” marker into service on Monday, rummaged some cardboard, and hit the road. Three days out there. Talking to my neighbors like this is so very similar to hitch-hiking. As with both, the cops show after an hour, and that too is fun, and serves as a good reminder that it’s time to take a break and find a different corner.

Because I know a lot of people in my new town, I’m finding out what people think about me thinking about them. And it’s outrageous and fun in its own way. Everyone has a different opinion about what I’m doing out there, with or without a head carry, with or without a pit bull. Everyone creating their own universe. It’s wild if you think about it. The license plates here used to say Super Natural till it came true too often.

Did I knock over all these trees in town? Well, not literally. But it’s funny you should mention that, because the world that is, is the world we have manifested. I Am now appearing as you, me, and friends of Epstein. It’s spooky and weird but fun to think about. We, I, you—you’re never not manifesting. [looks around]

See what you want so you can want what you see.

—dave in the northern [British] part of Columbia

Photo of me: does this incarnation make my chin look big?

Below: Terrace British Columbia interpreted by an iPhone 11.