New Jason Mraz Album - Love Is a Four Letter Word - Advanced Copy

The track list for the new Jason Mraz album - Love Is a Four Letter Word - was just released, and I know many of you are huge fans (too many in my humble opinion). Since this new Jason Mraz album will not be released until April, I have decided to give it to you to download a few months early.

These links are mostly to download live versions of the songs that will be on Love Is a Four Letter Word, the new Jason Mraz album. Although you won't be able to hear them in all their over-produced glory for a few more months, these downloads should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect. Below are the links to download the new Jason Mraz album - Love Is a Four Letter Word. (Keyword rich post for Google searches =)

01 The Freedom Song
02 Living in the Moment
03 The Woman I Love
04 I Won't Give Up
05 5/6 (Be Love)
06 Everything Is Sound (not available)
07 93 Million Miles
08 Frank D. Fixer
09 Who's Thinking About You Now?
10 In Your Hands
11 Be Honest
12 The World As I See It

Deluxe Version Bonus Tracks:
You Fckn Did It
I Never Knew You

This new Jason Mraz album - Love Is a Four Letter Word - sounds suspiciously like one of those motivational, self-help, positivity train wrecks that many of us are all too familiar with. "I've got peace in my soul" because I "live in the moment." Sigh.

I won't say that it is completely devoid of Mraz's usual inspiration, but I will hint that from what I've seen so far it seems all but. Maybe I just miss the machine-gun fast word plays that we've been spoiled with by previous Mraz records, or maybe it's just that live guitar-only versions really are just mere specters. Maybe falling in love really does ruin Hall of Fame songwriters by causing them to lose focus or worse (never blame the man). Whatever the case, this writer was intrigued at first but quickly underwhelmed.

Case in point: the first single from Love Is a Four Letter Word - the new Jason Mraz album - was I Won't Give Up. It quickly shot to 8th place in Billboard's Hot 100 - probably mostly from sheer morbid curiosity - and then plummeted just as quickly. Now it is nowhere to be found on any chart. For Mraz's sake, I hope this is not an ominous portend of the performance of the whole album, but I fear it just might be.

PIPA and SOPA and YOU

PIPA and SOPA – Why the Uproar?
By Joe Johnston


Like a poor, browbeaten old man and his shrill, nagging wife, the government of the United States of America has been barraged by the whiny voices of the entertainment and software industries for decades now. The growing stream of grumble from these monopolistic matrons has had only one coherent complaint on its cracked lips: that the US government is not flexing its considerable muscle enough to somehow put an end to the online piracy that is eating into these companies’ profits and ability to personally exploit struggling creative geniuses for corporate gain.

And like a bear awoken from its peaceful hibernation in the dead of winter, the US government has finally stirred its considerable self and decided to do practically the only thing it is really good at: overreact to the threat.

The incessant buzz of the entertainment and software bees is not completely devoid of method in its maddening drone. It is true that the tiny trickle of leftovers given to the actual artists after the conglomerates have all had their cut has been eaten into even more by online piracy. It is true that it is a sort of disrespect and devaluation of quality work to have it thrown to the glutted masses for nothing more than the price of an Internet connection. But the uproar about SOPA and PIPA has nothing to do with the proletariat rising up and demanding its piracy. The problem with these bills is that they go way beyond curbing the copyright infringement underbelly of the Internet. If these bills are passed, they will cripple the Internet as we know it.

PIPA, an acronym for the Protect IP Act, is the third face of a bill that has already been struck down twice by our wise leaders. The third time may well be the charm, but only if the charm means an even uglier and more nefarious potential abuse of power than ever. PIPA will bequeath to US corporations and the government itself the omnipotent authority to sue, punish, and financially cripple any site in the world that they deem to be infringing upon their copyrights.

SOPA, an acronym for the Stop Online Piracy Act, will work hand in hand with PIPA like a pair of gleeful, murderous twins with a grudge against the Internet. Much like the dreaded black list of the Cold War days, SOPA will give corporations and the government the unmitigated power to cut off from the Internet any site that they feel infringes on their copyrights in any way. Not only will this legislation enable these bullies to directly strangle any sites they don’t like, it will also allow the bullies to go behind these sites’ backs and order search engines to cut them off from their traffic and payment processors to cut them off from their revenues.

The main reason this legislation is so thoroughly vilified is because of its vague definition of copyright infringement. If these bills were passed, a video of a man walking by a Starbucks without explicit permission from the company to feature their logo could get YouTube sued for piracy. This article and the website hosting it could get immediately blacklisted twice just for the preceding sentence. A little girl humming her favorite Britney Spears jingle in front of a webcam could become the center of an immediate whirlwind of legal action, and her parents could incur penalties that would make Serena Williams’ $82,500 fine for talking back to a judge look like pocket change.

Call or write your state’s Senators today and insist that your voice be heard on this issue! Just don’t mention what brand of coffee you had for breakfast.

First published at www.mypadmonkey.com. Republished here without permission but with fair use.

The You Is Silent

I hate that I make her feel the way that you make me feel.

I hate that when I don't answer her calls, I know exactly how she's feeling because that's how I feel when you don't answer mine.

I hate that she wants me as much as I want you.

I hate that I am compelled to think up increasingly clever ways of commandeering your attention the way that she pulls increasingly miserable stunts to gain mine.

I hate that I spend hours restlessly waiting for your reply the way that she spends hours anxiously waiting for mine.

I hate that I let her down over and over the way you let me down over and over.

I hate that she throws herself at me the way I want to throw myself at you.

I hate that I am hurting her the way that you are hurting me.

I hate how she feels empty when I'm not around the way I feel cavernous when you are not.

But I love that it feels like I can get revenge on the universe in some twisted way by squeezing the life out of her the way you squeeze the life out of me.

Martha Marcy May Marlene and Me

Things that made me laugh about Martha Marcy May Marlene:

The big, old, decaying house
The endless cleaning
"Soon the government will collapse and people will go back to living on farms like this."
The dirty kids running around
The terrible musicians and songs ('Marcy's Song' excluded)
"He's right, I don't know why I'm so weak."
Always looking forward to financial stability "just around the corner"
Naivety about football, professional sports, and television in general
And niche hobbies and modern nutritional fads
And everything
"I don't know, it's a big bed -- you guys were on the other side."
HOW DID THEY GET SO MANY HOT NEW DISCIPLES WHAT THE HELL!
Official 'meal times'
"Your body doesn't need that much food, you'll get used to it."
Child care
Calling parents to ask for money
"You have so much potential."
"Morally superior moochers who live off and lecture you while insisting that you can't measure success by money and possessions"
The whiteboard by the phone and the phone protocol written on it
"You're a teacher and a leader."


While the 'cult' obviously had issues, the 'normal' sister and her husband weren't completely beautiful people either. Did they have to have such sticks up their asses about every little thing? Of course, I'm no one to judge. I've never had anything up my ass, and maybe the way they act is just normal, modern human behavior. Still, I wish people wouldn't have such a snobby attitude toward, for one, the natural, naked state of the human figure.

Some of the 'cult's' behavior was a bit improbable too. Although I have definitely seen how the ritualization of violation can definitely make some very wrong things sacred, I think the commonplace breaking-and-entering and the casual murdering was a bit far-fetched even for weird cults.

As far as the rape-cleansing ritual, I think the script's writer was trying to explain to himself through drastic measures how it is possible for people to be convinced to live alternative lifestyles. Maybe he doesn't realize or couldn't understand that you don't need to be 'raped' into an alternative lifestyle -- it is possible to just be seduced. Sometimes mainstream and society just isn't for you. Many people, of their own volition, live outside the norm, both idealistically and even sexually. Sometimes it even becomes a new norm, like monogamy once did. I don't think rape and roofies are necessary for a person to decide that the way many other people are doing things just isn't for her.

Florence + the Cliches

Here is a list of cliches used unimaginatively in the latest epic ballad "Shake It Out" from the usually cunning Florence + the Machine. Shame on you, Florence. Shame on you, Machine.

It's always darkest before the dawn (4X)
Leave the past behind
Bury a dead horse
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back (4x)
Given half the chance
Damned if I do, damned if I don't
The end of the road
A shot in the dark


Here is a list of cliches used imaginatively in the same song:

Every demon wants his pound of flesh.


Verdict: guilty of doing a half-assed job on the lyrics. Great music, great presence, and steller melody, though.

Abso-fucking-lut

My contribution to the Absolut-Ad spoof culture craze. Get it? (Click for full size.)

How to Make Love to a Friend - Part Four: Dangers

Part Four: Dangers
If you missed the other parts in this series, you can find them at the following links:
Part 1: Eros
Part 2: Philos
Part 3: Agape

Here are a few of the most common dangers that can rear their ugly heads when making love to a friend. Most of these dangers occur not while what is happening still has anything to do with friendship but when either or both of you allow the wonderful thing you have to twist into something else. When your normal human insecurities stand up and insist that you protect yourself by snatching as much control of your friend as you can finagle. That is what will put the poison into your piñata.

Ignore the urge to move in with your friend and start a magical life together. It is when you give in to the impulses that begin to drag you down this path that things inevitably begin to turn sour. Possessive thoughts that begin with "my" (my baby, my man, my princess - even "us" actually means "my") will slit the throat of the goose that is laying gold for you right now.

Friends do not belong to each other; they simply enjoy each other. They don't try to manipulate each other into giving them more. They are thrilled when they are in each other's company, and they live and let live when they are apart.

If you can at all fathom it, encourage your friend to sleep with other people. Friends don't exclude their friends - from themselves or from the rest of life. Exclusivity is the enemy of friendship. It will rot your friendship faster than almost anything else. Do whatever you have to to avoid it and to avoid wanting it.

The main reason why the kind of friendship I describe is so rare is because people are greedy by nature. We can't help it. We want it all, and we want it right now. We want to own things and people, and we don't care what it does to them. We want our little kingdom with at least one subject who fauns over us, clings to us, and sits beside us on our bed at night tapping away on their laptop.

You can't help it. This is who you are as a human being. Anytime there is a self, there is a tendency to want to put that self first. (Lewis, 1943)

My only advice to you is to try to focus your greed in any other direction than your priceless friendships. Take it out on a stuffed animal, a musical instrument, a puppy, or even money if you must. Wrap your voracious, clutching arms around the necks of these items and drag them into your world to stay. Be greedy for things if it helps you simply sit back and enjoy your friendship. If you can't sheathe the sword, at least remove it from your friend's throat.

As hard as it may be to hear, often the best way to be cured of the disease of wanting only one person all for yourself (one-itis) is to learn to want other people. Think about that for a bit. When you learn to open yourself up and leave yourself open to the amazing world full of amazing people around you, you will lead an amazing life.


This concludes the How to Make Love to a Friend exclusive special feature of this blog. Visit us regularly for new breakthroughs, trends, and tips that will improve your sex life.

How to Make Love to a Friend - Part Three: Agape

 

Part Three: Agape
Once you and your friend have shown each other that you are both able to handle the complete, all-inclusive version of friendship that so few ever attain, the fun can really begin. Believe me when I say that until you've made love to a friend, you've never really made love. You may have glutted yourself with one-night stands or marital bliss till it came out your nose, but you've never made love like this before.

At this stage it's crucial to be as clear and as deliberate as possible with your friend so that no mixed signals are sent in either direction. When you are in the mood for making love to your friend or not making love to them, let them know in terms that are not uncertain. One of the biggest benefits in friends with benefits is the absence of mind games. Instead of using sex as a way to secure intimacy with your partner or using friendship as a way to try to get into their pants, you now have the opportunity to  experience both friendship and sex in their pure, unadulterated forms. But it's up to you to keep it that way. Mind games are forbidden.

Although it is important to be deliberate about your actions, it's not necessary to be crass. You can demonstrate to them your intention without trying to sound like a porn star. For this third stage, once again I recommend that you both be sober and sane. Men and women alike, have some balls, and show your friend that you are not afraid to touch them with loaded fingertips, to lie with your faces close together and carry on an electric conversation laced with risque and spices.

This is the stage that will set the tone for the rest of your friendship, so be careful, and be crazy. Be what you want to be; don't hold back - that IS what friends are for. For god's sake, though, don't be timid. If you are timid, you will ruin the entire point of this proposal. You are FRIENDS. You're allowed to make a mess, break stuff, throw stuff. Do things and say things that you probably couldn't with a regular partner. Leave the lights on. Maintain complete dominance of every one of your senses for the breathtaking relish that these moments of discovering each others' final frontiers will be.

Take full advantage of the fact that this a friend with whom you are making love.

Agape is the word for unconditional love. It is a combination of all the various kinds of love mixed up together and thrown into one. It means that you love every part, parcel, and facet of your friend no matter how small or how taboo. It is simply impossible to experience this kind of love in any other kind of relationship. You can't wrap up your family in this word because there are parts of who they are and what they do behind closed doors that just gross you out. You can't plunge into this word with your spouse because you secretly hate the thought that they might ever be attracted to anyone else besides you, which is a routine part of human existence. You can't get hopelessly lost in agape with your platonic friends because you've erected a fence around essential parts of you to keep them out.

Although you may be able to tolerate every part of the other people in your life, sadly, you will probably never embrace them as the complete people that they are. In some cases, it's true, it's better not to. But when it is possible, it is paradise.

Stay tuned next Monday evening for some of the dangers of making love to a friend.


How to Make Love to a Friend is an exclusive special feature of this blog. Visit us Monday evenings for new episodes in the How to Make Love to a Friend series.

If you would like to read the other parts in this series, you can find them at the following links:
Part 1: Eros
Part 2: Philos
Part 3: Agape
Part 4: Dangers

How to Make Love to a Friend - Part Two: Philos

Part Two: Philos
Now that you have experienced your friend as a complete human being, physical, spiritual, and sexual, and have acknowledged all parts of their humanity, you are in a much better position to be a really great friend. At this stage, it's important to reaffirm the friendship side of your relation, so leave the sex aside for a while.

Don't act like it never happened. It did, and you both loved it, so let it glow in your eyes, but don't try to build on it for now. Now is the time to let your friend know that you value them as a friend. Spend time together doing what you used to love to do. Go out for drinks, and don't sexualize the evening. The best part about making love to a friend is that it doesn't always have to be about the eros or the emotion. It can and will be WHEN YOU WANT IT TO BE. And then it won't be WHEN YOU DON'T WANT IT TO BE. If you want to obsess over either eros or emotion, get a wife. Friends are only part-time lovers.

While you are placing the eros aside and focusing on the philos, don't disrespect your friend by flirting with other people in front of them. Although some friends will be okay with it, many will not, and it's important to keep the mutual respect at impeccable levels until you find out exactly where your comfort zones are. (While jealousy can be a great tool to gain attention in initial attraction phases, it's never polite to flirt with someone else in front of another person with whom you are already intimate, be they friend, fiance, or fuck-buddy, so don't do it.) Enjoy your friend's company, and show each other that, sex or no sex, you are friends first.

Because one of the best parts about making love to a friend is the flexibility that is built into the rapport, in this stage you may even want to down a few drinks while continuing to keep your hands off each other. This demonstrates to each other that it wasn't only the alcohol talking, that your sexual sides are entirely under your respective controls, and that you are perfectly capable of having a great time together and even drinking without necessarily falling into a pattern.

The limits are defined by you, and there are no ruts when making love to a friend. If you are able to keep intact the friend part of making love to a friend, your journey with us will continue.


How to Make Love to a Friend is an exclusive special feature of this blog. Visit us Monday evenings for new episodes in the How to Make Love to a Friend series.

If you would like to read the other parts in this series, you can find them at the following links:
Part 1: Eros
Part 2: Philos
Part 3: Agape
Part 4: Dangers

How to Make Love to a Friend

Part One: Eros
Making love to a friend is not only one of the best kinds of making love, it is also one of the best things you can do to a friend. Contrary to the Black Swan twins' recent re-emphasis in two similarly-titled movies (No Strings Attached and Friends with Benefits) of the tired, old Hollywood cliche that friends and sex don't mix, these two ingredients can actually make some of the most delicious of life's desserts.

When making love to a friend, it's important that both parties know what they want. Unfortunately, that is often the one thing neither is sure of. For instance, if you want to just get a fantasy out of the way and then get back to being only friends, you will have to do things differently than if you want to transform your friend into a potential romantic interest. Things must also be done completely differently if you want to keep your friendship on a sexual level and also keep your friendship.

Whatever you think your intentions are, getting a small taste of that other side of your friend can help clear things up for you considerably. Sample your friend, and you may be surprised at what you find. Maybe you and your friend won't be compatible in bed. Or maybe getting to know them in that way just once will bind you closer as friends than ever before. However things turn out, it is vitally important to ensure that your first taste of each other DOES NOT COUNT.

This is Eros, the first phase of making love to a friend. To make sure that it doesn't count, I highly recommend alcohol. Attend a wild party and drink just enough that both of you are able to say the next morning that you were not fully yourselves last night. Don't drink anything, though, that would keep you from completely enjoying your friend or remembering them. Extenuating circumstances will now allow you make instinctive overtures to your friend, as men and women are supposed to. This, as far as your basic instincts are concerned, is what the opposite sex, friend or foe, was created for, so don't be shy.

Feel free to go as far as the moment takes you during this initial phase; remember, it doesn't count. Thanks to the alcohol, no matter what happens, your plausible deniability will remain intact. Remember too, as the moment swirls around you, that, more than just a wild party, this is also research. It is a fantasy football team, a what-if scenario, an experiment that will remain completely off the books if you want it to or recur if the results are satisfactory.

If you decide you aren't sexually compatible with your friend, your journey with us ends here. The friend part will continue, but the making love part will stop. You will most likely find your friendship enriched, understand your friend in entirely different ways now, and have one more silly moment of past history to laugh about.

If you decide you are romantically attracted to your friend, your journey with us also ends here. While the making love part will probably continue, the friend part will most likely grind to a long, painful halt. You will have someone on whose shoulder you will temporarily be able to rest your head when the other fragments of your life begin to pile up, and you will be able to lose yourself for now in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. You should, however, begin looking for another friend.

If you decide that you and your friend make magic together, both on the kitchen counter and off, welcome aboard; your journey with us has just begun.


How to Make Love to a Friend is an exclusive special feature of this blog. Visit us Monday evenings for new episodes in the How to Make Love to a Friend series.

If you would like to read the other parts in this series, you can find them at the following links:
Part 1: Eros
Part 2: Philos
Part 3: Agape
Part 4: Dangers

Let's Go Get Raped!

Sex, drugs, alcohol - yawn, boring. These things have been an idolized part of pop culture for so long that they no longer turn heads. They have been firmly cemented into our party psyche to where it's a regular thing to cruise high, pop a bottle, and get laid. Regular Friday night. No big deal. What's next?

How about rape?

Well, date rape. And, actually, BEING raped, to be exact.

As an avid pop culture/party observer/goer, I am as fascinated by the latest in revelry trends as the next guy. Also like him, I like to keep an eye on the future - sort of try to predict what might be the next big thing on the party menu. And it has come to my attention that it is becoming increasingly popular to wake up after a weekend of partying and have little idea of what you've just done - or been done to.

A trend probably started by 2009's The Hangover, waking up clueless after a party has since become such a cliche that it sounds trite just mentioning it. That's because it is following the path previously taken by sex, drugs, and alcohol toward a thorough de-mystification, regularization, and integration into modern party culture.

The Hangover was so brilliant that it skyrocketed its three formerly unknown stars into immediate fame, made almost $500 million dollars to date, won a Golden Globe, and inspired a rash of music and film references, as well as a sequel. It essentially made 'forgetting' cool.

Thank you, Hangover.

Waking up clueless is difficult to do with alcohol but easy as pie, as depicted in the films, with roofies and other anti-remembering pills. These pills are most well-known for their rape-related side effects. Forgetting comes with pills, which come with rape.

Tonight, Tonight, by Hot Chelle Rae, currently number 12 on Billboard's US Pop chart and number 20 on their US Hot 100 chart, states: I woke up with a strange tattoo - not sure how I got it, not a dollar in my pocket - and it kinda looks just like you mixed with Zack Galifianakis.

Smile, by Avril Lavigne, which peaked at number 36 on the US Pop chart, says: Last night I blacked out, I think - what did you put in my drink? This was done to her by someone she is in love with. She lists the fragmented things she remembers doing, comments on her obligatory new tattoo, and then says she'd do it all over again.

Good Life, by OneRepublic, currently at 16 on the US Hot 100 and 6 on the US Adult Pop charts, talks about waking up in a strange city, having no idea how he got there, but having some pictures on his phone.

Last Friday Night, by Katy Perry, currently number 4 on the US Hot 100 chart, is entirely devoted to describing a scene similar to the post-party Hangovers. There's a stranger in her bed, a warrant out for her arrest, and she's trying to connect the dots. Last night is a blacked out blur and she thinks she kissed someone but she forgot.

Then there are the many less-obvious references. Big Sean's My Last has a verse dedicated to waking up not remembering anything. Katy Perry's ET discloses how she wants to get filled with poison, abducted, and become a victim. The album containing Sleeping With Sirens' hit song Do It Now, Remember It Later peaked at 78 on Billboard's Hot 200 and hit number 5 in the Hard Rock chart.

The weirdest thing about this latest rash of date rape songs is how in each case the drugging has happened to the artists themselves, possibly self-inflicted or possibly done to them by someone else. They are thrilled with it and, in many cases, state explicitly how they can't wait to do it again.

Now that my point has been proven, let me emphasize that I'm no naysaying conservative and I'm definitely NOT a conspiracy theorist. This is just information, for better or for worse.

There may be a day in the near future where it's the cool thing to wake up sore, scarred, and clueless. Don't think it couldn't happen - it wasn't that long ago that Elvis was banned from the MTVs of his era for doing what by today's standards is a slightly comical dance. Rendering yourself clueless could very well be the next big thing, if it isn't already.

Where will you be?

Rice Phase

For better or worse, I go through Damien Rice phases where I can't take my eyes off of floating cannonballs, and I strut around in pajamas for entire days stumbling through the work I have to do. These are not particularly gloomier phases than the rest of the anthill existence, nor are they particularly less motivated. I'm only as bi-polar as the next bi-polar bear, and he's so cuddly and cute.

If anything, they are definitely more poignant phases. Everything takes on a deeper meaning, more things are read into, more lines read between. You could say more thinking is done (therefore more am-ing accomplished?), more pondering.

I used to believe that my Damien Rice phases were triggered by you (plural, obscure, undefined). Now that you has many faces and none of them recent, I am beginning to run out of lightning for my blamestorm. You, perhaps, is a symptom of the phase rather than the other way around.

Be that as it may, I think these are possibly nothing more than a healthy balance for the unbridled optimism and enthusiasm of the high end of the see-saw. They help me to contemplate from my throat, sing from my diaphragm, and stare right through you. Tomorrow I will be back to Jack, Jude, Joe, Jason, Joshua, Justin, and Milow.

Hot Chelle Rae - Tonight, Tonight

Listen to the video then check out my commentary.




Don't think you can ever outgrow punk music. It's older than you.

The happy-go-lucky emo is the new great trend in rebellious young music. When denial turns to optimism, which turns to could-carelessness, you have a feeling on your hands that is quite hard to describe (and they wonder why we use 'whatever'). Still, make no mistake: partying on the rooftop, top of the world remains one of the best solutions.

Oh, also, I don't know when it became cool to name-drop a chubby, bearded guy into your song but I definitely approve. And kudos to Mr. Galifianakis for having somehow embedded himself firmly into modern pop culture (if not quite yet modern spell checkers).

If words like heartcry and youth were still in my vocabulary I might use them here. I might also use buoyant. But 'don't know if I'll make it, but watch how good I'll fake it' pretty much sums it up how everyone in the entire world feels whether they admit it or not, so don't think you're so special. We live in a teeming anthill of egocentric, pity-absorbed worker bees with game faces on, so you can cry on my shoulder for a bit if I can cry on yours. But then you'll have to go back to faking it because that's how things work.

Oh well.

Moral Cliches

The people in a certain Home knew all the moral cliches so well that they'd just call out a number instead of giving the whole sermon. "One" was that money couldn't buy you happiness. "Three" was that faith could move mountains. "Seven" was that what everybody needed was love, and so on and so forth. Somebody would say, "Fourteen!" and everyone would be deeply moved. Someone else would say, "Seventy-two!" and everyone would be encouraged and inspired. Well, the newcomer listened for while and then called out, "Twenty-four!" but no one was touched. Then the guy in the chair next to him sighed, "I guess some people just don't know how to give devotions."

This slightly passé and easily misunderstood parody is what I feel like when someone tries to preach to me. Not that what they're saying isn't profound and true and the answer. It is. And it's simple. Take a number.

My Illustrious Goals In Life

My goals are as follows.

1: Die.
But dying is neither as morbid or as easy as it sounds. I may have a death wish but I am still a huge opponent of both suicide and gratuitous risks. Therefore death in my case can only come by either a fortunate accident or the typical process of decay -- pretty much the same gauntlet that every other living thing runs.

Not that I even really want to die, simply that cursory scrutiny indicates that it may make everything a lot less complicated. Until my stroke of luck, however, here's only hoping.

2: Work Only Under Inspiration.
Here I leave space for those all "great" things that you obsessive accomplishment addicts continually crave another fix of. The only difference is, if it ever happens to me, I, one, will still have lived a happy-go-lucky life, two, will have been brought nothing but joy by any processes of achieving, and, three, will not be all sweaty.

Let me let you in on a little secret. There are billions of people in the world. No matter how hard you work and how talented you are, there will always be a throng of people who have worked harder and are more talented plus luckier than you. You will work your ass off and still end up being mediocre. I, personally, would much rather enjoy my life and be mediocre. Which brings us to our next goal.

3: Be a Minimizer.
This essentially means to work as little as necessary to stay alive and comfortable. This is easier done than explained so I'll just do it and leave the curious professionals to their day jobs.

I toast those of you who worry about your future, your career, and your humanity -- you make the world go 'round. This is not to say I have no mission. I still love aid, worship, and spreading good news. What it means is this: I take life as it comes, multiple times, but I take off in the interim.