Force is force, matter is matter, will is will, the infinite is the infinite, nothing is nothing.              – Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

Next [Panel I of The Nothing Triptych] » 20”x30” » Click for larger view.Thirteen Truths and A Lie – An Annotated List

1. I’ve never read Tolstoy. (Though I have recently read him cited – in a Vanity Fair article about Johnny Depp no less – and have just used the very same quote in a manner that might imply I had a deep appreciation for – or a least a passing familiarity with – his work [Tolstoy’s not Depp’s whose work I am significantly more familiar with than Leo’s].)

2. I’ve never thrown a punch. Neither in anger nor self-defense. (It’s worth noting that in spite of having been smacked, thumped and walloped with a variety of blunt instruments – a golf club, a baseball bat, a brick, to name a few – I’ve also never been punched, per se. Further, it’s worth noting that rather than drunkenly start fights, I used to drunkenly break up fights – wading in to the middle of a scrum to pull one brawler off of or away from another. So, rest assured, the pugilistic deficit on my résumé is not for fear of the delivery or receipt.)

3. The one real phobia I have is of being hit (in the face) by a hard ball at a Major League Baseball game. (This despite a now lapsed deep-seated fondness for baseball. And despite having once been hit in the face by a hard ball [though not professionally] and once each by a number of other things.)

4. Unless you count the (sometimes acute, sometimes manageable) social anxiety I have. (Crowds, particularly of people I do know, kinda stress me out a bit. Make me a tad anxious.)

5. I like the Black Eyed Peas. (And Auto-Tune. Boom Boom Pow, bitches. Deal with it.)

6. I haven’t cried in twelve years. (This is not to say, I’m unemotional, I sometimes feel I’m excessively emotional. I can well up as well as the next emotionally stunted jackass. I just haven’t felt the need.)

7. I’ve put cigarettes out on my arm. (Multiple times. In my early twenties. Socially, though, not like sitting alone in my room or anything. I probably told myself it was “punk” and/or “art” but really, it was just… lazy. A harmless – not literally, of course – affectation born of nothing more than my own indolence. Though I have to admit, being the one guy who would play “cigarette chicken” [forearms pressed together with a lit cigarette in between] with my crazy Vietnamese buddy during a boozy, smoky poker game – while the others bet on us – was a tawdry rush that I cherish as my own personal “Deer Hunter-lite” moment. [I wonder if when he recounts the tale, I’m the crazy one.])

8. It may go without saying, but I’m not remotely as intemperate or audacious now as I used to be. (And I’m okay with that. Putting cigarettes out on your arm is a young man’s [or woman’s] game.)

9. I’d never voted until the last election. (So I guess it does make a difference.)

10. I’m an introvert. (It used to be called “shyness”. Then I grew up, now it’s called “introversion”. [And, for what it’s worth, it’s distinct from the social anxiety.])

11. In spite of the not inconsequential quantity of illicit drugs in my past, I now have an aversion to drugs of any sort. (It’s a non-militant and non-proselytizing stance and simply a disinclination to subjecting myself to any unnecessary neurological and/or biological modifications through chemistry. Better living be damned.)

12. I once had a dream where I woke up thinking, “I once had a dream where some men killed my dog. I identified with the men who killed my dog.” (I didn’t have a dog. And upon waking I couldn’t fathom why I would identify with my dream dog’s killers. Or why I was referencing a dream within a dream. I still don’t know what that dream meant [the “real” dream, not the “dream dream”, which I don’t remember] and I do still think about it.)

13. I don’t know what I believe. (Spiritually. Metaphysically. Paranormally. [Maybe in general.] Have you seen some of the stuff going on with string theory? If you’ve got faith to spare, try using it on some of that sh*t. It will blow and/or expand your mind. Two words: Eleven dimensions. Two more: Parallel universes.)

14. I’m writing this to illustrate (if only to myself) that the only real currency one has is the currency of one’s own truths. (There is no lie.)