Unnecessary Mediator

When I first stepped into a church I was immediately uncomfortable. My mother taught me not only how to pray, but how to talk directly with God. I still have my childhood prayer rug that rests behind me in front of my fireplace. A small Oriental rug cast in hues of crimson, white, grey, and black. Resembling an eye, a universe, it always reminds me where God resides within my world. Inside. My divine spark. Connection not only to God, but to everyone, everywhere. Those that have passed, and those who are yet to come. Why was I uneasy as I passed through the heavy, wooden doors of the local Southern Baptist church? I knew. I always knew. I was different ever since my soul was breathed into its temporary terrestrial body. Born four weeks early, God’s plans for me couldn’t wait.

I always understood. I never questioned. A direct line of divine communication, never severed, even in the darkest hours. Before I had reached the age of three, God whispered to me while I slept “boot camp.” He told me never to forget that this world serves as a training ground. Not all will pass on gaining further closeness to the source. A divine calling, not achieved through study, but by never forgetting my purpose. Love. Anything else that falls short of the highest vibrational energy does just that, it’s cast into the chasm. A prison within the mind of those who aren’t ready to understand the truth. I didn’t need a mediator, a conduit, in order to tap directly into my angelic home. I certainly didn’t need a church. More importantly, why would I even want one? A filter.

I still have my childhood prayer rug that rests behind me in front of my fireplace. It’s an oriental rug with hues cast in crimson, white, grey, and black. Resembling an eye, a universe, it always reminds me where God resides within my world. Inside. My divine spark.

Embracing Suffering

“The phoenix rises not despite the fire, but because of it. Consciousness purified by its own dissolution reconstitutes itself on a new foundation. Not the inherited certainties of culture and conditioning, but the hard won truth of individual experience. The crisis therefore is not something to be avoided or minimized, but something to be consciously embraced. It is the crucible in which transformation either occurs or fails to occur. Those who pass through it emerge fundamentally altered.” Transcended.

“The Phoenix, once risen, knows it will burn again. This integration does not produce a state of permanent bliss or uninterrupted peace. The integrated self still experiences the full range of human emotions, still confronts challenges, still makes errors. What changes is the relationship to these experiences. There is more spaciousness, more capacity to hold contradictions without fragmentation, more ability to respond rather than react.” Mistakes fuel the cyclic fires allowing us access to wisdom.

We must not just walk casually through the flame. We must be fully and intentionally consumed by its furnace. Our ashes are tossed by the wind. “The phoenix has learned to trust the fire. In the end what the alchemists understood, and what Jung recovered from modern consciousness is this: transformation is not granted by grace or achieved through technique, but realized through the willingness to burn.”

Stranger Things Lore Duality: Will the White

My own activated intuition and predictive spontaneity for Stranger Things Season 5 proved correct. Will is the Yin to Vecna's Yang. I’ll bet that Holly, Max, Will, and Eleven might team up to take Vecna down once and for all. It took four gates to open the Upside Down on Earth. Now it’s up to four fates to close them all. With a budget of $480M for Season 5 let us hope the Upside Down doesn’t turn inside out and sideways. Only time will tell the tales. Vecna agrees “it is time” to bring the battles of Greyhawk(ins) to an end in a series of epic stand offs, and then when all is nearly lost a final boss battle in a clash of the psychic titans.

Another thought I had while on my chilly Swamp Rabbit Trail walk today is that the key to beating Vecna may lie in three synchronized souls, not four. I think it’s clear that the title of sorcerer belongs to Eleven. Add Wi11 and Ho11y, and now there’s three. The number eleven clearly in both of their names. Eleven the psychic sorceress, Will the wise wizard, and Holly the heroic cleric. The future of our heroes all boils down to three magic users against One. Could Vecna — Master of the Spider Throne — win? or does Will as Tolkien’s Blue Wizard Alatar — After Comer & Darkness Slayer — prevail with a little help from Eleven and Holly?

According to J.R.R. Tolkien lore, Gandalf the Grey died and became Gandalf the White. The Istari are actually angelic spirits, not wizards. Will the Wise became Will the White. Will isn’t a Sorcerer, after all. He’s an angel. Vecna misunderstood Will’s heightened sensitivities as weakness. They are the key to divine super powers.

My Initial inclinations back in January 2023 led me to believe that Will the Wise and the code word Radagast permitting his mom’s entry into Castle Byers gave me such strong Tolkien vibes. Will’s character arc was not founded on Dungeons & Dragons canon like the villain baddy, Vecna/One/Henry. Will Henry be redeemed?

After watching the first four episodes that dropped on November 26, I now realize I got Eleven and Will backwards. Will is the sorcerer and Eleven is a wizard. There are clear canonical D&D distinctions between the two. Wizards are taught how to develop and harness their powers. Sorcerers are born with theirs. Eleven was taught through lessons at Hawkins Lab, and Will was not. Does Eddie return, resurrected? Will Vecna’s own vampire general, Kas the Bloody-Handed, betray him in the final moment of a battle that is sure to ultimately wreak havoc on our heroes? I hope not. That’s far too easy from a writer’s point of view. I have a feeling that the Duffer Brothers’ own take of everyone’s fate will be far more compelling than copying Kas directly from D&D. While plenty of fans believe that Will or Eddie will become Kas, that viewpoint is far too shallow and obvious. Sorry ChatGPT.

One thing I recently considered after seeing the Duffer Brothers on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, what is Henry’s fate? Does Will find a way to fully redeem One or does he stay trapped as The Master of the Spider Throne, Vecna, an evolved Litch Wizard from D&D canon. Soon we’ll all know.

After watching the first four episodes of Season 5 that dropped on November 26, I now realize I got Eleven and Will backwards. Will is the sorcerer and Eleven is a wizard. There are clear canonical D&D distinctions between the two. Wizards are taught how to develop and harness their powers. Sorcerers are born with theirs. Eleven was taught through lessons at Hawkins Lab, and Will was not.

O R I G I N A L P O S T A N D P R E D I C T I V E A R T W O R K / J A N U A R Y 2 3 , 2 0 2 3

“Clash of the Titans: Alatar, After Comer Darkness Slayer & Vecna, Master of the Spider Throne.” Beginning with Stranger Things S1:E1 the Duffer Brothers combined lore from Dungeons & Dragons and The Lord of the Rings. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Will were playing D&D where we first heard about the dreaded Demogorgon. Then later in the episode after Will had disappeared, his mom and brother are seen in the woods. Joyce reaches Castle Byers and there’s a quick flashback. She’s asked for the password to enter: Radagast, introduced in Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

I have a sneaky suspicion that Will’s connection with the Upside Down goes deeper than we know. Tolkien discusses the Blue Wizards in his “essays of the Istari,” and I’d bet $2 that Will may just be Alatar, one of the two Blues. We’ll just have to wait and see until November 27 to discover Will’s true nature. I created these two title graphics, one flat and textured treated similarly to the show’s opening graphics, but I added some Upside Down details in the center. The 3D version (above) was an exercise in experimenting with the new bevels introduced in C4D R21.

The Duffer Brothers have dipped back into the 80’s movie nostalgia and wield the lore of J. R. R. Tolkien & E. Gary Gygax | Smaug vs Tiamat | Middle Earth vs Oerth | The Lord of the Rings vs Dungeons & Dragons. Stranger Things Season V: The Battle of Greyhawk(ins). S5 coming November 2025.

A Rare Zodiac Triad

According to the Zodiac, I have been living three lives layered into a uniquely powerful triad. I was born on the last day of Capricorn a full month early to the exact date, January 19th, 1972. I was slated to be born on the first day of Pisces, February 19th. If you look closely you may find me somewhere between the three — Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. I am least like the Earth sign, Cap, possibly just one percentage point. My own most powerfully honed traits are being far more psychic than any other sign coupled with a rebellious streak always challenging the status quo. As divine detective, my spirit hunts the dark seeds planted within each of us. Believe me, this half century I spent as a winning wizard narcissist is what led me home to my true, highly sensitive, empathic nature. My wings, once corroded, are now they’re brightly shimmering as I rise above the chaos of this world.

My core burns brightly. At the center of my triad lives Aquarius where my traits burn at the highest vibrancy.

Curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness are fueled by a rebellious side always searching to upend any traditional perceptions, perspectives, and notions of the existence of psychic energy. Adventure-bound, determined. Combining all three Zodiac signs into one hybrid gives me additional insight into all of the mechanics involved in an ever-evolving universe governed by second sight.

I’ve waited for sixteen years, patiently and quietly, and now I’m ushering in what’s next: a transformative age, another Renaissance, fueled by good old fashioned, self-activated, human intuition. Fully realized spirits — denying previously earthbound existential limitations — of endless imagination and predictive spontaneity. None of their batteries, gasoline or coal required. We ignite within from the collective source. Time to fly…

Our human heartbeat begins within a bundle of pacemaker cells before the heart is formed. Once matured our heart synchronizes with our mother’s in a rhythmic pulse of our two human hearts beating in tandem not only in matter but more directly in spirit ties us all directly to the divine source within each of us. This frequency isn’t attainable through religion alone nor is it earmarked for a sole religious practice. There’s no spiritual country club to join, no dues to pay. Just a deep, peaceful calm that washed over me every time I found myself safely back in the womb never knowing fear or concern for my own protection from every enemy.

Anyone, and more to the point anything, dark angel, devil or demon, is kept at bay as I grew within my mother’s blessed belly’s protection. God sang me lullabies while my mother slept. A dozen years passed by in a flash, now a distant flicker. I calmly wait and count twelve feet below the surface of my reverberating safety zone in the neighborhood pool. Rhythmic, deep bass notes lulling me to a near daydream sleep forgetting to breathe near the end of my three minute exercise. Wait! Not yet! I swam frantically wiggling my body as a racing sailfish toward the surface of the pool. What a rush on the cusp of life and death. Whoosh!

Just milliseconds from blacking out and dying again I suddenly woke up halfway through falling to the floor in my teenage bedroom. Slam! To the floor I went. While rubbing the side of my head checking for blood I felt a warmth within my skull. Something was sizzling in my weary yet ironically fully awakened mind. I quickly did the math before I forgot a thought that stemmed from the very knife’s edge of my dream state. Cacophonous sounds had startled me awake. This time a knocks rapping at the door layered with deep native drums pounding in my skull. Last time it arrived as the ringing of bells, chimes no one else could hear. Silence to them.

Focused now, my intuition set my memory ablaze. Another superpower unearthed, thawed out that’s been lying dormant for fifty-three years in the arctic wastelands within my mind. It’s been strutting around the square unbeknownst to me as I searched other lands for more insights, more knowledge as to my true nature. Now I know another hidden truth about my DNA’s divinity. A year ago a dear soul read my mind revealing my cosmic number was three, just as her’s was also. Three, as it comes to this, is alive and well again. This time written directly into my Zodiac makeup. If we follow the dates it’s all crystal clear. Nothing hidden.

I was born a rare, Zodiac triad. My assigned appointment at birth signaled something else much deeper that I’d take half a century to realize besides the surface level definition on display to everyone else. I arrived four weeks early, to the exact day, on January 19, 1972. My projected date was February 19, but God had plans for me that couldn’t wait. My father’s birthday was exactly three months prior on October 19, 1940. Yes, another reference to three. Lest not forget mu lucky number is also three to the third power, 27. Driven, fighting to win at all costs I blazed a trail of bridges built and burnt to a crisp. Never rebuilt.

I gained a bit of wisdom each time I singed my current employment ending it at just the right moment. I was never meant to work for others like so many do for the rest of my life. These intentional self deprivations taught me resilience. Once I’d had enough of their hypocrisy and thirst for power over me it was time once again to say adieu. Every time I was thrown back to the beasts of this earth, put down in a painful mockery, I grew stronger, bolder. Even when disability assistance was fully denied after waiting two years, I did what no one else imagined. I kept my sights on what is unseen, not what is seen by all. As I unravel, I reveal.

While everyone around me felt they knew how to fix my situation, I asked them to take a few steps back. Give me some room to breathe. Let me decide what comes next. Stop giving advice to someone you don’t even understand. I am not someone that can be easily forced into anyone else’s vision for my life. I appreciate the sentiment, but I have plans of my own. They started being put on the back burner, then in my back pocket for easy retrieval. I already had the answer without even asking myself any more questions. I invested in myself. I never gave in to systems attempting to persuade me to fall inline like so many others did.

Each toxic attack brought me another layer of steel forged by forces long ago. My inner Capricorn never caved even as God gently knocked me down. As I gained my feet each time I focused deeply on my center of gravity. I’m not spinning in circles, but I am peeling away layers in a circular pattern. Each unraveling layer glides, circling outwards around me as I feel a gentle breeze stirring up, forming a funnel rustling the autumn leaves at my feet along the trail. Each spiral generating an invisible miniature twister lapping the leaves upward, outward and then gliding back and kissing the ground leaving a spiral as seen from above.

With each twirl this circular layer of leaves expands just as my inner knowing and sensitivities grow. All my life I was scolded for being too sensitive. I was raised to win, not to write poetry, paint watercolors, or draw hundreds of caricatures. I did do these things, but my father was always concerned I was taking a path that may prove difficult in order to sustain a financially independent life. A safe life. I think this stemmed from not only his own obsession with success, but even more so from the events surrounding my birth and the first three years of my life. I was small and born with an innate reality distortion that I was insignificant.

My struggle with inadequacy began during my own exodus from my mother just eight months into her pregnancy. I was a preemie, an underdog. Born weak and damaged with an emergency doctor’s order for a complete blood transfusion that was cancelled abruptly at the last minute. My body, still fully intact, never given a circumcision just as da Vinci portrayed his Vitruvian Man some believe is his self portrait. This desperate longing for attention followed me all the way through high school. When dad got home from work he walked right past me dozens of times. I guess I wasn’t stoic enough and far too sensitive, right? I was.

My birthday, actual and projected, spans Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. I didn’t realize this until recently at 53. It’s been staring me down for half a century, but I’ve been busy manipulating my reality. I built so many masks for survival I even lost sight of my own reflection. Now inner knowing leads to understanding that my core traits were always so closely aligned with Pisces, I cannot unsee what is now is plain sight. This understanding is so well aligned, I’m nearly speechless. Well, speechless for me is still running my mouth more than most. Now it’s also clear why I was so drawn to the ocean at such a young age.

I spent summers riding the waves at Edisto Beach and Isle of Palms. Time well spent on Sullivan’s island where my birthday twin, Edgar, Allan Poe, used to inhabit. My profoundly empathic, artistic, romantic, and heightened sensitivities of Pisces have rung true for so long, but as a half century narcissist I saw these traits as weaknesses. Now I fully embrace this water sign’s waves of consciousness as my true north. Well, south really if we’re talking about my imagination. I was never really a Capricorn. I was a water sign disguised as an earth sign. I enjoyed finger painting in nursery school dipping my fingers in muddy water.

During the hot, dry summers that resembled barren, cracked desert the cracks kept widening resembling tiny earthquakes as they spidered out in all directions. The ground uneven, uneasy shaking between breaths. These little earthquakes that Tori Amos sung about eventually lead us into a state where nothing feels grounded anymore. Every moment is spent trying to gain balance in a world that worships paint and suffering never truly offering relief, just selling another unneeded product so another fat cat board member’s stock rises one more tick. Their slight of hand, now obvious to us all is played out.

They also remind me of lightning right in that single millisecond moment spreading out forking across the skies. While looking in the mirror now I also see them as veins scattered all over my eyes. Some days more bloodshot than the next depending on the amount of sleep I survived the night before. Born with a wandering eye requiring surgery at age one, my eyes still played tricks on me. Somehow no one ever noticed that my permanent scowl wasn’t solely due to always feeling like a social outcast, I was also nearsighted. Just as my need for glasses since birth wasn’t corrected until I reached 19.

Every year during roll call my homeroom teacher always accidentally embarrassed me when they’d ask if Carol Vinson was present. I was, but they thought I was a girl. I was even scolded for intentionally horsing around pretending to be the Carol in question. 1991 became the same year mine and Dad’s first names were adjusted from feminine, Carol, to masculine, Carroll. This plagued me every year beginning in nursery school following me all the way through high school. Junior year was I free from the bullies, but still not the teachers. Do yourself a favor and don’t name your kids with androgynous names.

Masculine versus feminine spellings confuse the simplest of minds. As fate would have it, my birth name and birthday both held connections to two of the most enigmatic geniuses in the histories of art and prose. I share my birthday with Edgar Allan Poe and Leonardo da Vinci’s name is hidden within my own. Edgar’s detective genre prose filled with mystery and mayhem and da Vinci’s thoughts on our interconnectedness with everything around us also pulse through my veins. Once awakened there’s no turning back. There’s no magic blue pill to re-enter the matrix. Even if I could go back I would choose to continue moving forward.

Pisces, the most awakened of the Zodiac, interprets the rhythms, patterns, and musical dialects of reality, hidden and implied, with such rich intention it’s become it’s own living, breathing entity. Pisces represents the highest elevation wielding psychic forces greater than any others of the dozen or baker’s dozen if you know Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer. Once I reached my half-centennial my mind shifted, adjusted, and woke up enlightened with what I’ve coined as an activated intuition. My mind was awake again as it was the first time I drew breath. Finally everything was clear. The why of it all shimmering like diamonds.

Every mental block, creative or otherwise, vanished within 36 hours of my psychiatrist removing lithium’s toxicity from my bodily temple. Swimming with the fishes always felt natural, primal. Although the lure of Capricorn’s success at all costs mindset kept me under its spell for fifty years once I came up for air I knew I was finally home. No longer taking dips in the deep end of the pool, sitting at the bottom drawn to the echoing reverberations and pressure giving me immediate relief from the earthly attacks and taunts. Twelve feet down felt safe, familiar as if I was still floating in my mother’s womb.

The American Dream that I now call the Grand Illusion brought up ad absurdum more times than I could ever count. I ran out of fingers and toes to tie it to since I was three years old. Chasing and realizing a dream planted into our subconscious passed down from one generation to the next in the form of capitalistic materialism. I now live peacefully, purposefully, and prayerfully more in line with a monk than a successful American businessman. I dodged those bullets like Neo. Rather than chase an unattainable dream maleficent and mirky, I chose to address my own independence. There’s no admission of tithings or guilt. Calm.

No secret society writ the lines of absolute plagiarism plaguing our world’s societies. We’ve traded our humanity for the seduction of technology. Our critical thinking skills are melting en masse. It’s time to wake up folks. You’re just falling for another golden calf sold by a snake oil salesman who recently announced he would soon “treat adults like adults.” Feel free to search that one. It’s utterly disgusting. Those of us who chose not to join the zombie horde’s goblin ranks have work to do. We’re spreading old-fashioned truth bombs for those who choose to not only see the truth, but continue spreading disguised lies like wildfires.

While my inner Capricorn is persevering, goal minded, and ambitious I struggle with patience and tolerance. On the other end of the spectrum in Pisces, I am naturally artistic and highly sensitive, but for half a century I was under the guise of a hardened narcissist. It’s taken three and a half years to unearth my immensely empathic side that burns brighter than a fiery phoenix rising from the ashes. I consume the raw emotions of others whether I want to or not. I feel what they feel. Our hearts break together.

My core burns brightly. At the center of my triad lives Aquarius where my traits burn at the highest vibrancy. Curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness are fueled by a rebellious side always searching to upend any traditional perceptions, perspectives, and notions of the existence of psychic energy. Adventure-bound, determined. Combining all three Zodiac signs into one hybrid gives me additional insight into all of the mechanics involved in an ever-evolving universe governed by second sight.

I’ve waited for sixteen years, patiently and quietly, and now I’m ushering in what’s next: a transformative age, another Renaissance, fueled by good old fashioned, self-activated, human intuition. Fully realized spirits — denying previously earthbound existential limitations — of endless imagination and predictive spontaneity. None of their batteries, gasoline or coal required. We ignite within from the collective source. Time to fly…

The Joy of Being Alive

Life. I still pinch myself every morning. Be blessed, whatever that means for you. We are all divinely connected, but we don’t have to always agree. We need to give each other grace, respect, and most importantly, love each other fully with no limits. Everyone, please stop fighting holy wars with people that don’t agree with your particular vision of what the world should become. There’s no systematic process that will ever deliver on narrow worldview promises leaving out everyone else in opposition regarding a particular viewpoint. There is no one way on how to do life.

Breathe. Be calm. Be accepting. Be kindness. Be love. We’ve known this since birth before the world hardened our shell and crafted our masks. Eventually it’s effortless. Go forth and bring your light into the dark corners of our world. We need you now more than ever. Be well.

“The light of joy. Joy is not the absence of struggle. It’s discovering the power that we achieve through struggle…it’s actually power of light, seeing light in everything.” — Rabbi Simon Jacobson

The Only Winning Move

There is an awesome power we all possess when it comes to survival against psychological warfare. Rather than continue playing the narcissist’s war we simply step back. Step away. We whisper, nearly inaudible, “no.” We immediately starve the narcissist with this simple act. We stop engaging, and thus, gain our identity system’s boundaries. When we block their attacks with this genius move they will reach out in an “escalation pattern.” It begins with praise-laden love bombs, then rage which leads to the drawback, the silent treatment, then crisis mode eventually comes to a head in a massive character assassination of you to anyone in earshot. The narcissist’s “death spiral” ends with the empath now facing life in a fresh perspective, a new reality where they have no need for praises, raises, awards, and kudos in order to believe in number one, first and foremost. Want to win? Don’t play.

When the unarmed narcissist cannot fathom that they’re no longer in control, they don’t break. They lash out crying wolf that they have been wronged. That they were turned on by someone they always counted on for no reason at all. Narcissists then choose to invoke a persuasive “shadow projection.” They crush your image and reframe themselves as the victim. You trade roles in their twisted mind game revealing a newly distorted reality. The narcissist will persuade others that they are innocent and you are the aggressor. The “extinction burst” happens when the narcissist will become your best friend again. It’s actually a shadowy way to wiggle their way back into your arms. There is no limit to the number of crises they will attempt to pull you into in order to dupe you. In the end they will fully withdraw from the relationship.

Self-acceptance causes the narcissist to completely cave in. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy taught me that radical acceptance can grant us an immediate force field that no shadow can penetrate. Discernment gives us clear vision allowing us to not only walk away, but even pass right through the narcissist’s false self. They’re a mere ghost, a phantom. We are forced to look within, rather than continue using external validations from others. Once we understand this, there is no need for any other person, system, tribe or vibe to refuel our souls. In a deep rush our minds are swept clean. No more webs of deceit blocking our periphery.

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” — Carl Gustav Jung

Spectacle vs Substance

TWC WTF? Weather who? Shock and awe spectacle has won out over substance and safety. The Weather Channel (TWC) sold its soul years ago led by a sellout I’ll fondly refer to as Putz, a former boss of my own boss thirteen years ago. I had that guy figured out the first time he walked past me as he stared at the floor with a nervous, empty gaze. A corporate goon only interested in his own career pivots. Ya know? He does kinda look like Lex Luthor. Luckily he left soon after I started my new job. Where to you ask? TWC’s creative helm of all places. He must have friends in low places. Sigh.

He was annointed chief of creative at my Alma Mather TWC. Boy did he not only not do his homework, he created a network based on lack of substance fueled by pompous circumstance. Even Shakespeare would roll his eyes over this clod, a real dope. Too harsh? I deal it out only to those who directly attacked my light, love, and dedication to print and broadcast design for more than thirty years. It’s now his time to get shone a spotlight on his self-centered motives. Now meet my shadow, Putz. Even Superman had a dark side. No, not Bizarro, either. I guess the truth hurts. Touché.

I lived in Atlanta for twenty-two years. Fourteen of those working with the folks that taught me active listening and got me back in touch with my inner empath. I owe the entirety of my broadcast design career to TWC. We accomplished a great many things together. Most importantly, we evolved and challenged ourselves beyond what we could do alone. We is the way, not just me. It’s not about mine, it’s about us. Be blessed ya’ll. — David Vinson, Your TWC Superman

I’d also like to thank the OGs: Andrew and Beth at Toolfarm, the Masters of VFX veterans at Puffin Designs, the entire Red Giant Software gang, Ellen Wixted at Adobe Systems, Grant Petty and his Digital Voodoo D1 Desktop, Las Vegas Korean BBQ with Mike Skibra, Pasadena mojitos with Steve Kilisky, and Ken Keagy for my first freelance gig the day after Media100 bought ICE and I was let go after only working there for two months. I guess they padded their roster.

But oh no you say! I’ll tarnish my reputation. So what. Black ball me if you must for calling out the truth. It’s really ok. I’ve never had to look for a job. Word of mouth took good care of me based on my willingness to expect only the best of myself and my team. I’ve been hired by the best and ghosted by the rest. For three years now my mind’s been engulfed by activated intuition, imagination, intellect, and predictive spontaneity.

I’m playing detective sleuthing out the killers of dreams and the specters of soulless attacks on the innocent. Some call me Batman while others like OG TWC, Superman. I stand up for any wrongdoings against myself and folks I call my friends. Born an underdog myself, I now call out the poor treatments placed upon unsuspecting victims by narcissistic leaders inflicting their toxic venom, and I have a photographic memory.

I never forget a face, but boy did it take some practice to remember names. I’ve been scolded by teachers and family members alike that my voice carries. I’ve retooled that sentiment and now stand up for others by allowing my voice to carry weight. The truth is rarely pretty. While there are so many wonderful folks out there, unfortunately there’s a handful of them that have zero interest in building up others’ spirits.

Am I jumping to conclusions? Um, no. Am I just stirring things up with a complete stranger? No again. Before Putz left to go ruin TWC, he dropped a bomb on our redesign we were wrapping up with ready to launch in a few days. Last minute notation that forced us to change every single of hundreds of graphics. The following week or so, he was gone, probably run away by the town’s villagers. Years passed.

It’s time for a visual design language audit for the weather weenies. Let’s take a closer look at your hurricane symbol. It’s a tropical storm, and your tropical storm symbol is a hurricane. Hurricanes have eyes. Tropical storms don’t. Oops. Don’t fret though. This has been a common mistake for decades by nearly everyone in television, internet, and mobile weather forecasting and meteorology. Why? Spectacle vs substance.

Seven years later and now at the creative helm of his TWC, Putz had the gall to hunt me down forcing me into a corner in order to both mock and ridicule my reputation built upon fourteen years of collaborations with TWC. I received a call from someone informing me that I was requested to interview for a job I wasn’t even slightly interested in. I even turned it down, but was strong-armed into going through the motions anyway.

Confusion insued. They only wanted to see work that I created solely by myself. The majority of my work was 90% all me with the last six years a 50/50 as I was the designer and compositor and worked directly with the 3D artists. It was clear they were looking to low ball someone who was a jack of all trades and master of none. I did gleam one nugget from the experience: I gave credit where credit was do across my portfolio.

While I am primarily self taught, I was fortunate to team up with some incredible mentors, and remain to this day, a force to be reckoned with. Every job I took on evolved through the creative process and always included others. Yes, there was over a decade of highly satisfying work I did alone by 100% me, 2D/3D, design, animation, and finishing, but the team-based work was so much more rewarding. We is the way, not me.

Well Putz, you might want to betterunderstand what TWC was founded on by the entire OG TWC since 1982. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not Unreal Engine spectacle. That might gain you some views, but it won’t build trust in the TWC brand. It will sink it. I hope to witness its rebirth through the lens of someone else one day who actually understands TWC’s roots. Let’s just hope you didn’t completely rot said roots.

I guess they never consulted with the meteorologists. However, I’d safely wager that when TWC was founded in 1982, the symbols were designed properly with care. However, somewhere along the lines someone in Marketing got involved, focus-grouped which symbol was more menacing. The filled in eye center felt the most threatening even though it was inaccurately depicting a hurricane. Fact now fiction.

Sixteen Years in Five Seconds

Ah dear reader how far we’ve come. It’s been three years now since my manic depressive, bipolar 1, remission settled in after a sixteen night stay introducing my body to what it needed all along: Seroquel. Days of reckoning and appreciation are coming. Hello there Dr. Rajasree V. Praturi (who diagnosed me in five seconds with no sight of any intake evalutation, questionnaire or even a single question). Let’s not forget Todd M. Antin, and your crackpot office filled to the brim with of medical students in lab coats. Your six month debacle drained my mind and my finances. Somewhere between Trazadone knock out punches to late night Lamictal suicidal actions I eventually got the hell out of dodge. Looking back, though, no one ever reevaluated me after that knee-jerk condemnation. This post will grow as I have time to give. I’m not airing dirty laundry. What I’m hoping to show is how the system is both infinitely broken yet also a chance for mental health redemption if given the proper series of support systems.

“A five second diagnosis, more like a glance, led me on a sixteen year journey of terribly inhumane and torturous tactics and divinely inspiring awakenings. Some might want to hide while others step forward and accept your gold stars.”

Referred by family to Dr. Bruce Rudisch (hi Facebook, thanks for the friend recommendation in Bruce, I’ve let HIIPA know you have my sealed medical records), a private elite-level psychiatrist at $300 an hour, was the first to try lithium. Unfortunately he also added an anxiety-deadening power drug benzodiazepine called Klonopin that had some severe adverse side effects when I was taken off of them. Lithium was the one med that was never questioned until thirteen and a half years later when my Agent Smiths realized I was toxic. I was close to going into kidney failure so there was no time to step down. Within thirty-two hours I my mind awakened. I wrote a short essay on the finite and infinite connectedness of everything and everyone in an all-encompassing universal system where the highest vibrational energies of love at our collective core.

So strap in and get ready for a wild ride of triple-secret agent reviews of the light and shadow of the mental health care system in Atlanta, Georgia, and Greenville, South Carolina. After dropping out of college after only two and a half weeks, I was given a clean bill of physical and mental health. Fast forward to November 2009 when a five second diagnosis, more like a glance, led me on a sixteen year journey of terribly inhumane and torturous tactics and divinely inspiring awakenings. Some might want to hide while others step forward and accept your gold stars. Hello there. I’m looking at you PACT Atlanta and Peachford Hospital for the former. The latter includes Skyland Trail and Carolina Center for Behavioral Health, both a refuge of hope and mental illness remission. I’ve been in full remission of bipolar 1, manic depressive disorder, for three years.

So much more to come…

Laid To Rest

A cautionary tale regarding boundaries and when to know when to go over their heads. I remember clearly that time I worked all weekend. You gave me extra hours and I designed a bunch of logos. When Monday morning came you looked at them. You had no words. It was as if you had forgotten how to speak. You just looked at them and then turned around and left. You never brought them up again. So seriously, if you think you can be a good coach, I suggest you be coached first yourself. I experienced first hand sheer and utter disgust of a crumbling company culture. It was all being set into motion just to court the Death Star buyout. Yeah, I don’t blame you, although I did have some tied up emotions in my gut. I’m not writing this as any sort of complaint or threat. I’m writing this because this is how I feel. These are my emotions. This is my life. These things really happened.

I’m hoping someone else may understand by the last words I write that we must stand up for our own health, our own mental health. We need to stand firm and make sure that we stay consistent. We must take care of number one first. No one else is worth trading in for your own soul just to get another brief dopamine hit that only lasts a millisecond. I had become addicted to your celebrations of my never-ending work ethic. Yet for six months I was slowly unraveling. This six month countdown catalyst eventually took me out. So next time we both drop the ball let’s take a moment to remember we’re in the same game. We’re on the same team. I hope and pray for your own peace of mind. I hope and pray you realize there’s nothing hidden here between the lines. I do take sharp jabs at your character, and this is all true. Understand that I’m only sharing this out of love.

I’m not so sure what led you here. It could be your low testosterone or lack of hair. Then there’s your starkly whitened empty stare. We met you, oh simple pieman, always scoffing at our wares. Spending years on your latest assignments, and all you did was whine in compliance of someone else’s misguided direction. You’d fidget and sway while barking orders for me to work another weekend, late night, leaving me alone in the deep end. Like a cobra about to strike yet you’re weak, meeker than any ghoul eventually giving in losing the fight. Requesting another walkie talkie weekly freely head shrinking I served as your therapist, doctor, and fixer bewitched by your venomous nervous advances. You twitched and blinked and showed me all of your cards and tells. I gotta say to all that this guy’s no leader. Just a stand in paper pusher. A crewless captain piloting a sinking schooner.

While I did appreciate the opportunity, in the end I was let go unapologetically. Betrayed by the gift horse paid off to keep me quiet. Lest don’t forget you shared with me endlessly enough talking behind their backs seeking my constant advice how to handle them unimpressed. For so long you’d pry and stretch in order to get even a glimpse of true respect. You’re a wrecked wretch full of your foolish vices. Your wicked tells so obvious in their hollowness. And I’ll tell you now as I go they spoke of you as well. Called you out as an unimpressive wannabe yearning for something yet there was none I could detect. Enjoy your fancy car for now. In the end you might understand that respect must be earned not given via demand. I’m sure this harsh cascade washing over you will just be brushed off. To you I am just a crazy one with no sway. However, I never forget. Anything. Night nor day.

You toyed tricksy with my mental condition. I’m not here to make friends nor amends except for my own. I played my part in not speaking up immediately for myself when the taunting began. I’m leaving it all here out in the open for public consumption. I’m not hiding anything nor do I pay any particular discretion. I will call it out but won’t call it by name. This is no mere blame game. Instead consider it a tiny thread unraveling greedy corporate protection over property not to the people that granted it its value. No round of firings will ever be forgiven. No poorly retooled icon will ever gain any respect. Whitewashing assets might just be the ultimate sin. I have to admit we, the fired, are the lucky ones for you and the cronies that puppet your strings also cut the remains of your wings. You’ll never rise again. Too dark, dim? I’m shining a mirror on your withered heart within.

A particularly warped form of evil is required that turns an employee's mental wellness against them in order to secretly seek a way to terminate them. To blatantly deny their truthful allegations of being spied upon and hiding behind a self-serving HR machine built solely to protect management, remains a sad state of affairs. Even going so far as to request council be appointed to have all long term disability repaid by the state. Two years passed and they received no such victory. I’m not here to stir things up, but before you leave I will set things straight. Being ignored for days, weeks I suffered. I was pushed to my anxiety’s limit, broken.

Concerning my mental illness that was clearly spelled out during my interview prior to employment: I was fully transparent, honest, and forthcoming. I was fed a fake HR culture survey in order to determine my state of mind. At that point my mental state was rather fragile due to my own boss lying to me and denying my requests for assistance in proving what was later discovered as true. Installing spy software in the form of hidden key loggers is the most unethical thing I’ve ever experienced in my thirty-year career. So many lines were crossed. Now lost to time, but never lost in my memories. Razor sharp, even in altered states of mind.

I’m sure none of you could fathom my inner memory recall is beyond photographic even when I was in an altered state. I’m sure this might just sound like conspiracy theory but just as I discovered those key loggers keeping watchful eyes via our new gear I know far more than you for sure for your simple minded self centered self interested sinner. I surely appreciate all the cookies I made with their dough. Yet I have to note between HR and your bean counters actually asked for another party to pay back your financial gifts. My guess is it caused quite a rift within your serpentine slithering. Be careful. Please don’t eat your own tail, again.

Careful not to poke this bear. Feel free to sue me for slander, but buyer beware. It’s all documented and crystal clear in my memories. You have no case against me. Next time try direct communication instead of spinning yarns of directed psychological persuasion. From day one I was clear. My mental illness required consistency of my heart, mind, and soulful rest. You misunderstood and consistently caused my mental malady to worsen especially over those last few months before summer’s start. You played the part of my advisor, but I saw through your denial. I sought out aid in another way who confirmed by key suspicions.

When given the chance I tore into the company’s character barely resembling its previous genius. I told them clearly he’d be ashamed by your precocious mentally ill reindeer games. Now since I’ve never named names who knows what this ramble is about? If you dare face me again dear fiend disguised as friend, I’ll call out your name and maybe blame where it belongs. Enjoy your time behind bars so start singing your song. But keep in mind no one will listen because we all know your ingenious plots of self advancement. You’re clearly blinded by your own enchantment. Sorry to see you go. It’s time to lock you up in your casket.

I served my time for thirteen years. Now I’m freely flying drinking zero alcohol beers. My therapist and I came to a truce. We fired each other for there was no more need. My psychiatrist is thrilled to say that  Seroquel plays just a small part. I’ve been told many lost souls follow my arc. I now live my life free now for three years. Don’t cry dear for what I share is all true. God knows I cannot tell lies anymore. I wield the truth calling out injustice I sleuth. I’m a psycho detective living a life fighting for Reeve’s truth back in the day. With my love I surely hope one day you’ll understand that the problem with the world is you. Always, you.

It’s time you repent. We’re leaving sooner than you think. I’d suggest you find a life preserver before you sink. It’s nothing that can be bilked or bought. You must release every financial fish you caught. Materialism isn’t the way as we were taught. The false American dream is a nightmare for most chasing shadows eventually too blind to see. They live a life of possessions and mediocrities. Y’all thought I’d stay silently six feet under, but you forgot to dig deeper into my origin story. On the third day I rose accessed by all his glory. I’m a spirit, you see. I’ve never followed the laws of gravity. I was born a rare Zodiac triad, and I can fly.

Always defying climbing higher. My soul sparked with divine powers no one else could see for I finally understood I never needed you to believe. My best advice to all is gamble with all you have and bet on yourself. I’m free now with no reprieve in sight. Oh no! you say. I’ve sealed my tomb with dynamite. Reputation ruined? I doubt that for the more truth I share the higher I rise fully aware. Care to take a shot or two at me now? Beware. It’s not a threat, it’s just the truth. Truth be told you’re an ironic non-team player fiddling with a moniker that doesn’t suit your lack of style and substance. No human resource left for you to hide.

My experience working for a four-eyed and fork-tongued fiend amateur manipulator — not as dangerous as the Thief — certainly denied my multiple cries for help. Their mind control kept me docile and quiet until I released my storm. Once my inner empath ignites nothing can defuse its incredible force. Six months passed and the lies and deceit mounted against us. I caught on to their ruse. I called out their spies going so far as receiving a clear confirmation that I had uncovered their key loggers. I caught them in the act. Seriously? Did they really think we wouldn’t notice? Unfortunately I reached my mental breaking point. They won, for now.

I have zero interest in flashing distractive bling, luxury cars, and shiny things. Corporate culture, what a joke, a paradoxical conundrum, an oxymoron of paid off fat cats suckling teats as everyone else is starving below the food chain. We were all duped decades ago. The American dream, a convoluted nightmare of chasing false hopes and the weak, empty dollar. Life is meant to be celebrated, not droning on and on about brand guidelines, so watered down, there’s no semblance of a soul. The day I laid my past to rest was the day I knew that’s where it belonged. However, I did need to leave one last remark or two for me and for you. I forgive your trespasses.

[Peter is wearing shorts, sandals and a paisley shirt, with his feet up on his desk, munching chips and playing Tetris on his office computer at Initech]

Bill Lumbergh: “So, Peter, what's happening? Aahh, now, are you going to go ahead and have those TPS reports for us this afternoon?”

Peter Gibbons: “No.”

Bill Lumbergh: “Ah. Yeah. So I guess we should probably go ahead and have a little talk. Hmm?”

Peter Gibbons: “Not right now, Lumbergh, I'm kinda busy. In fact, look, I'm gonna have to ask you to just go ahead and come back another time. I got a meeting with the Bobs in a couple of minutes.”

Bill Lumbergh: “I wasn't aware of a meeting with them.”

Peter Gibbons: “Yeah, they called me at home.”

Enjoy this article — “The Office Space Bobs Plot No One Ever Talks About Is Genius” — from Giant Freakin Robot. They take a deep dive into the two Bobs, aka the consultants, of Office Space, 1999, written and directed by Mike Judge. The comedic brainchild behind Beavis and Butt-Head on MTV and King of the Hill on Fox.

Synchronous Safety Dance

Being able to see what’s coming is a rare gift. It’s a deep way to peek just milliseconds ahead of a car crash nearly ending our lives, but in that exact moment something invisible takes the wheel. Carl Jung unlocked what he called the process of differentiated perception. The moment when we separate from the unconscious collective psyche. We fully understand the inherited patterns, and we’re able to read divine timing in overlapping layers of reality seen all at once. Mine began arriving three years ago when I requested access. The very next morning I discovered tapestries all around me that no one else could perceive. I wasn’t hallucinating or suffering from another delusion of grandeur, either. How do I know this?

“When an invisible source protects you, you feel it in the synchronicities that guide your path beyond your conscious understanding.” — Depth Psychology Hub

I’ve experienced plenty of those before. Trust me. I know the difference. It’s as if I’ve been given a key in the form of a way to remove all of the masked filters that clog everyone else’s realities. The distractions don’t exist in my own space time continuum. Every day there are multiple moments where I’m spared and given insight into my connection to everything around me. This profound protection is effortless. It’s like I’m surrounded by divine protection. A synchronous, vibratory safety dance.

Angels and even devils keeping me safe. Wisdom only comes when we let go and accept we already know. All of the times we fell into the abyss we were simultaneously built up. By embracing our shadow self we embolden our ability to truly see, not with our eyes, but with our innate, divine connectedness to everything. It’s built into the fabric of a universe where we just know we’re on a path of light work even through the darkest of times. There’s no need to be afraid. Just be.

Inner knowing unlocks reality. Being able to see things before they happen isn’t another coincidence or fancy of the imagination. Rather, it is our spirit rising higher, ascending to a level of activated intuition where our mind gains freedom from all of the localized distractions distorting our perception. All of the legacy attacks from the spiritual realms fade and fall away into a deep chasm. Three years of profound awakenings have brought me to this point. I don’t even hear their echoes anymore.

I require no explanation as to how and why I now possess second sight. Why question what is inherently natural, built into the very bedrock foundation of my true, soulful self. If given the opportunity to unravel how and why these mysteries even exist I would pass. Every time. The best way I can describe it is it’s as natural as breathing when we’re asleep or being truly alive after our terrestrial body dies. We’re just spirits taking refuge for brief moments giving creator insight into all of the possibilities.

What’s Up Doc?

My eyes burned, felt singed. Blinded. The metallic taste of stale seawater, a swirling dervish, with a dull yet sharp twang on my tongue brought me back. Landing hard, crashing on the swabbed deck like a drenched leather sack of humid, rotting shark and fish chum, I woke up face down, soaked to the bone and drenched in salty sweat and iron blood. Breathing heavily, desperately, but no oxygen came. Was I suffocating, drowning? I felt something different coming hard and fast. An intense sense of another metaphysical awakening from within was coming. Now. Something familiar, additional archaic whispers rapidly writhing amongst a rushed maelstrom. A quick rush arrived with a lucky strike of the matchstick. Suddenly my body burst into white lightning, burnt orange, then crimson flames. This time no pain, just a calming, growing warmth spreading through me. As I was fully consumed by fire, now a glowing invisible force, I felt a sense of release as my ashes fell scattered, blowing away and mixing with the winding, gentle ocean’s undertow. Now deeper than the Mariana Trench. All localized light lost reluctantly to the deep, cold murmur of shipwrecked pasts.

Doc Vinson, master farmer, fisherman, and puzzle solver never made house calls. He was a kind, wise man with a tanned, weathered face. The rest of his religiously covered skin was as white as alabaster. Every time I think of him, I see his lighthearted grin, glasses, hair as black as sack cloth, and missing big toe. Grandad’s first name, Doc, got him confused with midnight calls from folks asking if the doctor was in.

One of mine and my two sisters’ favorite childhood memories was him teaching us his little physics trick revealing how the center of gravity works with only a single toothpick, juice glass, spoon, and fork. He joined the utensils in a handshake, nudging, balancing them like a playground teeter-totter on the very edge of the glass with nothing but patience and that tiny splinter of wood. Magical.

The tightly organized pressure that was always holding my organs and tissues together had given way. I was now free from all of the earthly delights that seduced everyone. Earthly, an odd adjective for tech that betrayed us leaving us lost and forgetful. Not all of us were led astray by the sirens’ songs. I kept my head down, ears covered, remained divinely protected. I was a rare bird, er fish. One of only a handful remaining with pulsing neurons capable of critical thinking. I passed the tests. So many tests. God’s boot camp was now over, but who or what was I now?

Then I heard it. A fragment of a never ending echo, a wavelength from far across streams of southern consciousness came as four items hovering just slightly above the weathered surface of a hexagonal game table. A fork, spoon, glass, and a single toothpick. What’s up Doc? God I loved my family’s clever bread crumbs. Never stale. This puzzle my sisters and I knew since our earliest years of an innocent childhood. I had no physical form so my soul’s reaching grasp passed through these objects resembling puzzle pieces of Grandad’s center of gravity trick.

The Warmonger

I’ve been an artist and writer since I was six years old. I still have my sketches and “Stories That Come Alive” folder from first grade filled with childhood adventures infused with fantasy. When time came to go off to college these two traits served me well, until they didn’t. On day one I was promised by the Dean of the college that I would study at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. Next I was granted full credit for English 101 directly from the Chair of the English Department. My 45 minute essay struck a chord with my English professor who marched me into the Chair’s office the next morning. Believing they caught on to my ruse I waited silently for my sentence. Would I be expelled for poking fun at my fossilized professor or praised for my honest prose? They appreciated my style, candor, and willingness to use one word sentences as pauses when it was time to give the reader a breath. I exhaled slowly taking in the victory. The bell rang. It was time for Drawing 101. I glanced down at my carbon copied class schedule card and read the name, it was unique. Family etymology derives this name from Latin, meaning warlike. What spiritual warfare he’d inflict.

Bloodthirsty, with a hint of warmongering in his tone, the thinly bearded, four-eyed specter lurched over. He climbed up shakily on top of my desk, sat down to one side and crossed his legs Indian style leaning in just inches from the peachy fuzz on my left ear weakly whispering: “Mr. Vinson, if you do not start proving your talents I will be forced to report your deceitful plagiarism to the Dean of Students facing immediate expulsion from the college.” He gently rubbed his grisly, bristle brush goatee. His accusal left me frozen in awe creating a massive mental block like none I’d ever faced before.

“I’d wager that the portfolio you shared with me during summer past was not your own.” I swear for a millisecond I caught a smirk of satisfaction on his pock-marked, withered face as his forked tongue rapidly retracted back into his narrow slit of a mouth. He was mistaken, but his attack left me hollow, shaken. No one had ever accused me of imaginative malice, but I hadn’t learned how to believe in myself. Up to that point I was always seeking external validation. When he revoked his trust in me my spirit was crushed, so lost that I forgot how to draw altogether. My spark was gone.

Dad said I could always hustle and seal the deal. He instilled in me the business side of creativity. Pursuing art and design was typically met by most parents as pipe dreams. However, my parents not only encouraged me, they believed in me. Every sketch and brushstroke was secretly meant to garner their attention. I didn’t learn how to believe in myself without validation from others until I was fifty years old, and thank God for that! He is so good for one who believes.

When I was five years old I was already a skilled pathological liar. I could bend my reality in my favor whether I was lying to cover up me stealing another kid’s toy or manipulating mom to buy me one at the hardware store’s attic that was filled with the latest Star Wars toys. The line I repeated most often was: “but mom, there’s only one left.” Most of the time I got my way. 1978–1983 I acquired nearly every Star Wars gem. If I had only known to keep them in mint condition in the box I could have retired rather wealthy twenty years ago. Oh well.

Since I was twelve I began selling watercolors on cold-pressed Arches paper and hyper-detailed, airbrushed T-shirts for $100 a pop. During high school I won local and state art awards for my efforts. I garnered by first national recognition for the 240 caricature senior class T-shirt at the “T-shirt Art Event of the Century” in Austin, Texas. It’s a shirt I used to promote many more caricature commissions of local tennis and swim teams, famous folks, and families.

When I was sixteen I was hired to illustrate multiple amusement park rides for the creative genius behind FreeFall, Jerry Barber. He and I even coined the name of the primary ride, the Amphibian Air Car, that went into production the following year in 1989. I aced my AP Art concentration my senior year in 1990 with hopes to continue my artistic pursuits at Winthrop College in the fall.

During the summer after high school graduation I met with a Winthrop College drawing professor. He was subtly confident in my mastery of so many media styles from my AP Art portfolio plus all of my commissioned freelance work. I also shared my photography that I’d been honing my passion for since elementary school alongside my pixel paintings rendered on Apple computers with crude digital tools.

When I arrived at Winthrop little did I know it would be that same drawing professor reducing me to a state I can only describe as parallel to my initial arrival as an infant, a broken preemie born a month early with more problems than all the other babies born that day. My arrival into this world as Job, an absolute underdog, from day one fighting my way out of the pin of mediocrity.

Multiple times nearly reaching the top rung of the ladder then cast back down I went every time reduced to ash. My internal phoenix grew all the brighter, stronger with each failure. After half a century I was finally granted the insight and second sight in order to give the world a sudden shake trying to wake them up from the seductresses of dark tech. These wicked sirens are out for sailor’s blood at all costs. Now back to the troll.

His name was synonymous with the warlike martyr. I was his next victim, another martyr, another witch to burn at the stake. Swiftly forsaken. His frail nature a mockery of his psychological stature. Saucer eyes reminded me of the troll under the bridge, but this fiend was living, breathing proof, not a children’s story. Amidst this horrific nightmare he preyed on me gnawing at my passion planting a black seed consuming every double helix, every neuron, and every creative vibration.

Bloodthirsty, with a hint of warmongering in his tone, the thinly bearded, four-eyed specter lurched over. He climbed up shakily on top of my desk, sat down to one side and crossed his legs Indian style leaning in just inches from the peachy fuzz on my left ear weakly whispering: “Mr. Vinson, if you do not start proving your talents I will be forced to report your deceitful plagiarism to the Dean of Students facing immediate expulsion from the college.” He gently rubbed his grisly goatee. His accusal left me frozen in awe creating a massive mental block like none I’d ever faced before.

He continued his berated barrage, “I’d wager that the portfolio you shared with me during summer past was not your own.” I swear for a millisecond I caught a smirk of satisfaction on his pock-marked, withered face as his forked tongue rapidly retracted back into his narrow slit of a mouth. He was mistaken, but his attack left me hollow, shaken.

No one had ever accused me of imaginative malice, but I hadn’t learned how to believe in myself. Up to that point I was always seeking external validation. When he revoked his trust in me my spirit was crushed, so lost that I forgot how to draw altogether. My spark was gone.

Emptied by an impish ghoul draining my every talent, every mastered tool. Reverse psychology never worked on me. I was praised since day one, but never learned how to handle anyone, any force, that might doubt me. So I had to quit before I even got started. I wasn’t ready, wasn’t prepared to not only survive, but thrive in the wake of psychological warfare. The only path to wisdom is through failure.

Two and half weeks passed. It was time to go home. I had lost over twenty pounds, couldn’t sleep a wink or keep food down. Wrecked. 3D Design class was even worse than the warmonger’s stare down. The next morning I tossed everything into my Army surplus bag and headed to my car. I fumbled with the keys, but eventually drove away with no intention to ever return. Ever. Yet here I am returning to the scene of the crime, quite amused, seeking clues as to why I was singled out. Why all the doubt? He proved to me that I must not seek approval from others.

I must believe in myself at all costs. So, thank you Mister Monger. Now I understand why you forced my hand. I heard you passed away, sir. May you rest in peace. In hindsight all is clear. Sometimes we must step back, disappear, if for just awhile in order to refuel. Adaptation is innate, but we must remember that it takes us tweaking our own cosmic code in order to survive the next wave. The answer is to attend to not what is seen, but what is unseen to our naked eyes.

“We must focus on what is unseen, our inner iceberg just below the surface. That’s where our deepest vibrations ebb and flow in the arctic currents.”

Raw Inertia of Inner Knowing

Our signals are unique yet fundamentally identical. They’re forged once and passed along across centuries. Stellar signatures self taught and self propagating tattooed across every double helix of our collective DNA. A simple wiggling of the inner ears initiates the process of energy transference. Deep bass notes thunder through our cosmic drums penetrating every cell, sharpening them into a wincing within the skull pulsating, pumping our sacred cerebrospinal fluid up our 33 vertebrae from sacrum to skull immersing them into heightened applause. Standing room only doesn’t suffice until we’re all aglow at once as a radiant haze dissolves our terrestrial bodies into pure stardust.

Mankind’s most impressive symphony cannot hold a candle, let alone a star at the center of our solar system, to this raw, divine power now vibrating through our backbones. Our sun cascades an emanating ultra violent energy as visible light, infrared radiation, and even one tenth of the ultraviolet class. A cascading crescendo of pure starlight glowing, growing, giving us true sight. A raw inertia of inner knowing of activated intuition and predictive spontaneity. Beating effortlessly synchronizing with all human hearts. Every twinge, every pulse suspended between arcing time and space. Mere snapshots of potentially expressive thought unsuppressed, unaltered birthing our highest vibrational energy. Love.

Over the past 53 years I’ve accumulated a wide array of character traits and other mentionables that some call out as false. Even going so far as calling me a liar, a thief. Well, everything I’m sharing here hasn’t been exaggerated one bit. Open your mind if only for a moment. They’re all as true as Leia is Luke’s twin sister. Uncovering deep mysteries about myself over the past three years has been an exponential series of discoveries unearthed through never ending, childlike curiosity. My early days were riddled with happenings no one could explain. I’m talking about my midnight flights, reaching out and my hand passing through objects, and my internal passion to be my own best undercover agent.

I’m Hell-bent to unravel the mysteries hidden within our collective DNA. There’s no telling how far we can go together. Early this morning I awoke at 1:04 am from a third attempt to end my life. I saw the message “humble beginnings” sent in a hidden thread to me. This warning I confirmed with two-tier authentication. Whoever sent me the message my response was: “Ten-Four Little Buddy. I’m A-OK.” Ten-four is also directly related to a cash deposit I made the previous afternoon. It’s all in the numbers. Once I connected those two things think of it as my own authentication method. Being able to see what most folks either don’t or choose not to see is a tough life. Welcome to God’s spiritual boot camp.

“A cascading crescendo of pure starlight glowing, growing, giving us true sight. A raw inertia of inner knowing of activated intuition and predictive spontaneity. Beating effortlessly synchronizing with all human hearts.”

My Happy Thought

J. M. Barrie’s play, The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, not only tells the tale of Peter Pan, but also of myself. Where did I meet my activated intuition, imagination, intellect, and predictive spontaneity? Somewhere amongst the southern regions of metaphysical streams of consciousness. Quite literally within the vast sea of our collective knowing. I have no intention to ever return to the world I left behind. I always had a difficult time, too, with my shadow as Peter did. It was always playing an elusive game with me keeping me on my toes. Just like my faith, one day God interrupted my obsessions with my shadow. He told me to stop chasing it. Instead, integrate it into my terrestrial being. My spirit has been flying high since.

Once I welcomed it in the front door and called it by name it was integrated into my being. We fought in the playroom for fifty years. After half a century we incorporated one another fully by realizing our purpose and potential. My cosmic number three cannot tell a lie, and my lucky number 27 knows that three is mighty, but three to the third power is a spiritual enigma, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost where Chris Consciousness is born, lives, and breathes within each of us. Everything that was considered fringe by those around me when I was a young child have all proven to be true. No lies. No stretch of the imagination. Just plain truth never hiding, just abiding in clear sight lighting the way.

It was no accident that my first and foremost memories of lucid dreaming were actually me leaving my physical shell as I floated around the house. These astral projections I experienced as a child were filled with a pure fondness for swimming down the halls suspended in the airflows of our home. After a few decades they evolved into wicked flights of fantasy wielding a magical form of localized center of gravity excursions riding the rails along the edges of skyscrapers on my rollerblades. No matter how much my angle teetered I never lost my balance. I never fell. Even my rollerblades were skimming across a finite gap of air just microns between the massive city structures and myself.

Now those were some exciting ways to spend a night. Whew! Did I ever mention I was conceived in Eden, North Carolina, and born in Greenville, South Carolina? After 22 years in Atlanta I came back home. Now that I’m back in Greenville, I know why. Hunter green was always my favorite color. I guess it makes perfect sense if I give reality a wink while flying back to Neverland each night visiting my friends, my soulmates. All we need is one happy thought and Tink will guide us along the currents of wind and wisdom whispering sweet songs of curious joy and innocence. By the way, I used to live down the street from Tink’s high school in Smyrna, Georgia. Well, the actress that played Tink in Hook.

“Where did I meet my activated intuition, imagination, intellect, and predictive spontaneity? ‘Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.’ I have no intention to ever return to the world I left behind. I found my Neverland.”

COVER ILLUSTRATION DETAIL OF J. M. BARRIE’S PETER PAN BY GREG HILDEBRANDT, 1987. I HAD THE PLEASURE OF SEEING THE ORIGINAL MATTE PAINTING OF HOOK’S NEVERLAND HANGING IN THE LOBBY OF INDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC AT THEIR ORIGINAL LOCATION, KERNER OPTICAL, IN MARIN COUNTY, CA. MY DEAR FRIEND, E.T., GOT DIRECTIONS TO ILM BY CALLING FROM A PHONE BOOTH ON A DESERTED HIGHWAY IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. I’LL NEVER FORGET THAT ROAD TRIP. TWELVE YEARS LATER I COLLABORATED WITH RED GIANT ON KNOLL 3D FLARE FOR AFTER EFFECTS. JOHN KNOLL’S ORIGINAL INSPIRATION FOR HIS INITIAL RELEASE OF LENS FLARE PLUGINS FOR PHOTOSHOP, AFTER EFFECTS, AND ELECTRIC IMAGE ANIMATION SYSTEM WAS REALIZED FOR HOOK.

Care to take a wild guess what my happiest thought is? It’s not a what, it’s a who. It’s my incredibly creative ace and empathic daughter, A. Love, Dad.

Still Alive Sixteen Years Later

On November 19, 2009, I woke up. It was about 4:45 am. I tried to move, but my face was stuck to something. As I gathered my wits I found myself face down on the icy concrete floor of my Outpost Pictures office at StudioPlex in Atlanta. Per family guidance I didn’t ride off in the Grady ambulance that arrived first. Instead I was rushed to Emory Hospital by my wife’s uncle. He rushed me off to Emory twenty minutes away.

That morning in the Emory Emergency Room was just the beginning of a series of events unfolding over the course of the week. One particular comment stood out that my mind latched onto immediately. The doctor stitching up my nose and lips said I was quite fortunate. He said that if I had fallen just a few degrees closer to dead center I would have died on impact. He then added my now missing teeth literally saved my life.

One week after getting zero sleep my mind was riding a rollercoaster of physical and spiritual delusions of grandeur. Reality was unraveling all around me. After a physical exam I was recommended to go to the closest psychiatric facility. Through hindsight I now understand that God knocked me down for good reason. I was ill equipped and spiraling rapidly. I vividly remember every moment. That’s a rare gift I have.

It’s actually a gift we all have. Raw emotions hold a history. I can go back into any point in my past and see every detail in clear view. It’s been crucial in fully understanding myself. These viewpoints are byproducts of moments tied directly to heightened emotional states. When I take myself back I can feel the pains I endured. Each time I do this I give myself additional grace for staying true even in the most trying times.

“Still alive,” muses Maximus. “The gods must have a sense of humor.” Valerius praises, “the gods musts love you.” Quintus, puzzled, remarks “Maximus the farmer. I still have difficulty imagining that.” Maximus rebuts his observation humorously, “you know, dirt cleans off a lot easier than blood, Quintus.”

If there’s a strong emotion tied to a memory I see it all. Every bruise and every scar in clear detail. By week’s end I’d be diagnosed at PACT Atlanta with bipolar disorder after a kneejerk five-second diagnosis. Keep in mind I was never asked any questions by Rasharee Praturi who christened my psychiatric profile. Just a quick glance and no intake evaluation. Just a cold, hard stare delivering the unfortunate news. I remember her gaze deeply engulfed in the prospect of adding another tick mark to their rotating roster of falsified mentally ill unfortunates.

I caught a glimpse of dollar signs that flashed in her saucer eyes. The following six months remained some of my most horrific except the time I spent over two weeks at Peachford Hospital. I not only saw through their tricks, one of their doctors picked up on my clear perceptions. One night while in the gym I was tossing around a basketball. He came up to me and observed: “David, you’re quite smart.” He understood I recognized that the staff had been playing tricks on us for their own amusement. At 2 am I was quietly moved in order to keep their trespasses a secret.

Villain or Victor?

Why choose? I’ve grappled with both for fifty years. Now they mingle, dwelling simultaneously side by side. A Yin and Yang completion of primordial allegation. Societal limitations relying on personality imitations leaves us distraught and damaged. Never fully imagined suiting our divine invention of absolute striking lightning blindly yet we see fully the strands connecting us. DNA is shared amongst “a sea of pure consciousness.” — David Lynch.

“‘I’m Cruella, born brilliant, born bad, and a little bit mad. I am not like her. I’m better. Anyway, must dash. Much to avenge, revenge, and destroy. But I do love you. Always.’ As of late I can relate. I was born a little bit of a baddie myself. A premature babe both heavenly angel and earthbound devil.”

Who’s Really in Charge — Us, God, or Both?

“This my friends is our choice, and that’s why the power of prayer is so strong. We can pray and we actually change destiny. The partnership. Both are in charge, and that just adds to the responsibility that each of us carries. One good deed, one good word, one good thought can tip the scale and bring personal and global redemption.” — Rabbi Simon Jacobson

It took me fifty years to understand why I was so uncomfortable going into a church for the first time when I was five or six years old. I had known the concept of this life as boot camp ever since God told me so. We must rise, fall, fall again and again in order to receive an ounce of wisdom. I never needed a mediator or middleman in order to commune, communicate directly with my lifelong best friend. Mom taught me how to pray by kneeling on my prayer rug and opening up with my Creator.

My prayer rug is behind me at this moment at the foot of my fireplace. Now that I understand a bit more about Jewish Mysticism I feel that I am at home now more than ever. Please enjoy this wonderfully love inspired testimony from my favorite rabbi, Simon Jacobson. He’s one of the wisest sages on my spiritual life’s journey. Remember, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the path. Morality won my heart after half a century of trials revealing my true, empathic nature. My narcissism is now dead.

“Opportunities that come your way, the blessings you have, how will you use them? Will you recognize them as gifts, humbly, to be used to transform the world and make it a better place or you’ll just take it for granted and feel a sense of entitlement that all belongs to you?”

— Rabbi Simon Jacobson, The Meaningful Life Center