”The human mind has drawn a net of logical relationships and practical ingenuity over the phenomenal world with which it is confronted; and so, by this intellectual and material domination of the world, it has removed itself to an infinite distance from the created world in which it once had a purely natural share. It was this natural world in which the Brethren of the Free Spirit saw the meaning of life.”

- Wilhelm Franger, The Millennium of Hieronymus Bosch

Dearest fellows and friends,

I’ve been welling up to write tonight, wondering what I might, and will attempt to weave half a dozen ideas of late with recent sparks of insight and inspiration in a spontaneously poured tapestry of words and letters.

With perhaps too many spinning plates and a determination to finish this 17 Ideas that Changed My Life “idea catalog” I’ve been muscling to complete, I misread the end time of my friend Avi’s monthly online sort of spiritual circle as the start and wrote him to apologize at meeting’s end. He replied soon after, kind, humble, and intriguing as ever saying no worries, see you at the next one, and that he and his wife bought this sweet little tiny house and will be moving to the midwest to embrace something quite like he’d recently bumped into on my blog about being cheap, sensitive, and naked to the world.

His comment connected, clarified, and crystallized something for me. You see, I’d been grappling with the above Robin Greenfield interview. Pondering minimalism, mysticism, the morality of environmental impact, humanity, and those sorts of things. In the interview, Robin explains that the United States is only 5% of the world’s human population, yet uses 25% of the world’s resources. He then drops a gem of a quote from Gandhi that goes, “live simply so that others can simply live.” I have long loved the simple living, but honestly not out of consideration for anybody else. It hit me hard enough to pause the podcast, write those eight words in huge handwriting across half a page in my notebook, and buy Gandhi’s autobiography.

But when Avi reminded of that “cheap, sensitive, and naked to the world” line, it sparked recollection of my loose and intuitively chosen “quote of the year” tapped to the wall of my cheapest-rent-in-Phoenix bedroom, wise words from Alan Watts:

“The only way to change human behavior is to woo instead of preach. To make love, instead of threatening disaster. To point out how glorious something could be, and in some way to live it. This is the real meaning of ‘Make Love, Not War.’”

This collectively sums my thoughts and experiences of the past month so well. I’ve been long aiming for swimming in wonder, for viscerally feeling here and now, for expanding my awareness ever wider, for becoming evermore desirous to teary-eyed-bow to the ground of being from and through which we and all be.

Lately, these sorts of experiences have been happening a handful of times a day… Moments that, alone, could make a whole day enough.

And, you know, to compete with the ceaseless signals of industry, advertising, and confused rich people flaunting stuff in front of cameras the world round, I thought tonight I might woo with this other way: I’m eating carrots on the roof at sunset, getting stoned and running barefoot sprints in the grass in parks, ripping my single speed bike around the streets of downtown Phoenix to coffee shops and the gym two through four times a day, cooking and eating real food, reading great spiritual books, grooving great music, meditating at night, climbing mountains and having philosophical conversations atop them with friends, walking from my house to the nearby airport to use credit card bonus miles to go surf and ride motorcycles and scooters and be on the cheap in Central America, and living the adventure of following interest and intuitive creativity. It’s all quite inexpensive, way fewer bills, I’m saving most of the money I make etc.

So this is my late night go at the “woo instead of preach” method — a carrot instead of a stick. But it’s not a method really… It’s just what welled up in me because I’m experiencing it and it sings sweet and resonates deep in me.

Despite the claims of everything we’re sold, happiness isn’t had through “having” — the good life isn’t acquired through tangible goods. Rather, it seems like a careful culling of the superfluous. An artful subtraction of distraction. A learning to love the basics. A deepening relation with the mystery inherent in all things.

I like it better something like that.

With love and stoke,

Ethan

Just Released:

Nicolette. @ Rhythms of Life in Joshua Tree, California, USA on 11.17.2024

Back in November, I had the grand pleasure of putting all my real estate photography skills to use, running four cameras (iPhone, 2 Nikon DSLR’s, and a drone), to record this airy, flowing, deep house music set by my friend Nicolette just north of Joshua Tree National Park.

Nicolette is a brilliant artist across many mediums, quite probably a genius, and one of my favorite people to converse with on Earth. I recommend giving this set and anything she creates a gander.

Dig it >