I wanted to share this new work. I’m really proud of the creative. The campaign was fun and the client is great. These are the first set of outdoor executions. The idea behind the “Unapologetically Campaign” is to capture the spirit of the Texas attitude which lies at the heart of the tournament, the region and the people of the state.

The most important thing to know as a writer is that you have to write, a lot. Write every day, every morning, write when you’re on a break at work, write before bed, write at lunch. Scribble the words on napkins, in journals and into your writing program of choice.

The one resource that I really love is The Lie That Tells A Truth by John Dufresne. No other books has had the impact this book has had on how I approach the craft of writing fiction. His book is full of great information, first-hand examples of how he tackles tough writing challenges and best of all the book makes for a great read. Dufresne’s style is funny and personal. He writes like he gives a damn. And, he knows what hell he’s talking about.

If you write, read this book. Of course, do it while writing. Read it in the nooks and crannies between putting ink to paper (or font to form?) and I think you’ll find that the insights will give you fuel, help you find certainty and just enough hubris to do the unthinkable: write a novel.

That’s my plan. I will write a novel this year. I’d hate to let John down.

Indeed it is. So, then how do we eat responsibly?

1. Participate in food production to the extent that you can. If you have a yard or even just a porch box or a pot in a sunny window, grow something to eat in it. Make a little compost of your kitchen scraps and use it for fertilizer, Only by growing some food for yourself can you become acquainted with the beautiful energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. You will he fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life.
2. Prepare your own food. This means reviving in your own mind and life the arts of kitchen and household. This should enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of “quality control”: you will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat.
3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, the freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence,
4. Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. All the reasons listed for the previous suggestion apply here. In addition, by such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers. and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers.
5. Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to food that is not food, and what do you pay for these additions?
6. Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening.
7. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.

I find Berry’s writings and ideas to be for the most part beautiful. His thoughts on food and the merits of local, sustainable agriculture rings true with me. And while to follow these suggestions is a challenge in our convenience obsessed society, making the effort is well worth the price of participation.

The Self is everywhere. Bright is the self,

Indivisible, untouched by sin, wise,

Immanent and transcendent. He it is

Who holds the cosmos together. [Isha, 8]

This is about our non-locality, our pervasiveness throughout the All and our role in the creation of the All. Or, as it has also been written: Tat Tvam Asi.

However, this isn’t always the rule. My question is why? What do we have to lose by opening up and letting good thinking in regardless of where it comes from? Are we that territorial?

This from Get Back In The Box by Douglas Rushkoff.

Open source is more than a computer-programming ethos. It’s the impetus to an approach toward work and life that makes secrets and protectionism obsolete, and opens the floodgates of innovation on an unprecedented scale. As of yet, however, most people and businesses are still unprepared to confront the challenges to their own sense of competence that go along with it.

In other words, as Rushkoff writes, “Open source may be a new business model but it’s also a well tested, even ancient, approach to innovation.”

Personally, I like the notion of transparency. It’s honest and sincere and in an industry plagued by deception and skepticism, we need a fresh dose of truth. This begins with the ways in which we work and conduct ourselves. Besides, if we haven’t figured this out yet, people don’t want to be sold, they want instead to be inspired by brands that mean something to them, brands that resonate with their value systems and sense of self.

We gotta start somewhere. Why not the creative process?

We impose a range of biases and past experiences on our present and future actions. Even with regard to our interactions with people, we don’t see others as they see themselves, but as we see them. Therefore, we experience each other and the world in very selfish ways and how the world is perceived will be different based on the mind and ego of the experiencer.

He retells a story that is relevant for today when he writes of two men who go to foreign lands to experience and report back what they find. One found the people basically good at heart and generous. The other, a bit jealous, found that the people he experienced were selfish, scheming and cruel. In turned out that both we describing the same land.

As Easwaran writes, ‘”We see as we are,’ and our foreign policy follows what we see.” When I apply this idea to my country, the whole concept becomes very troubling.

The ultimate idea here is that if we change ourselves, we change the world around us, even if in subtle ways. Because all change, like revolution, starts within. And true revolution, like true change, is about the heart of the individual.

Or, as Robert Anton Wilson always said, “What the thinker thinks, the prover proves.”