Isn't it a little odd to see a Kangaroo in the Northern California Forest:

Isn't it a little odd to see a Kangaroo
in the Northern California Forest?

  

"I've spent most of my life avoiding jail time and criminal trouble. I've gotten pretty good at it, and been cheered and supported by most of my friends who've done the same. What makes no sense to me is, when someone is caught for a crime where we all want to find a guilty party, why are there mobs screaming the cry of injustice when no real case can be found for conviction?

If you're going to scream and cry for the not guilty to be found guilty, or for the mismanagement of case evidence, or shoddy police work, then may no one sit to listen to you whine the next time you're sobering up in a drunk tank for having one beer too many." 

It's one of the only, real, things I've written in months as I chase around this wild jackrabbit of life. Everyone always expects something these days.. Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with this plan -- I've always been exceptionally good at responding to spontaneous stimuli --  but what troubles me is that service seems to be needed at all; as if, somehow, all the sails and winds of life have been snatched up and stolen away, leaving an ocean of motionless sails and dehydrated sailors.

I've never understood why this service is in such short supply, or why the ability itself is so stunted. I've wasted many hours, postulating by 'old timey', as the locals call them, drinks -- the kind of thing you add a dash of bitters to and have taste like nothing but juice when they'll get you fully loaded --just trying to figure out what the problem is and why it's so bad. I thought, maybe, it was television, perhaps the news, or even a fear of one's own mortality that had blindly herded us into patterns of sedition from our own roots, but none of that made sense. After months of searching, I've come no closer to finding an answer and I'm not sure I ever will either.

I've never been one of those people, the kind who can't seem to make rhyme or reason out of existence or respond positively to the random happenstance that really makes up life. It's the things you never expect that have the greatest potential to motivate you -- even if they lead you down a road of damnation, to a place where paranoia sometimes runs rampant and you're left looking over you shoulder looking for some rabid, wandering, marsupial that is hell bent on consuming your very existence.

This is, fundamentally, why I want to visit Australia. It's a metaphorical embodiment of a lifestyle that is impossible to capture any other way. It's harsh, unforgiving, completely unpredictable, but absolutely beautiful.  It's raw in its form, but poetic in execution. It's one of the only places left on the planet where you can find a co-mingling of tribal roots and modern urban excess. It's not the kind of cheap, trumped up, theatrics you'd expect to see on a Vegas stage either, oh no, this is the real stuff. It's where life is life and the strong get eaten by hordes of the week, where new inventions rot the old, social, customs, and where all crime is punished by severe lashings with a sea salted whip. 

All of this is just fine with me, honestly. They say the road from hell -- and I honestly don't know what else you could consider this representational world we live in -- is anything but short and easy, and I've always been okay with that. I've found nothing in life where the reward hasn't been directly proportionate to the investment -- if not the risk. It's why I've always gone for the big money. I have no time to nickel and dime bet my way through life. I'll play big, win big and-- as long as my credit's good -- play with as many chips as I can borrow, beg, or steal. It's why I've always respected the game of high stakes poker. Play Big, or go home.

Life doesn't award us any other luxury odd. Everything's a once in a lifetime chance, and each and every one of them is worth being taken. It's one of those high stakes tables, filled with every manner of random drunk and fool who's struck it big in the most recent turns, ready to lose it all with one bad throw of the dice. It's the lonesome drifters, those wayward, quiet, souls rolling in for one last toss of the dice, hoping to land the last, great, score before turning their cowboy boots toes up in the sand.

It's an addictive, harrowing, ride and it'll leave you aged, like leather left out for years in the hot, Nevada, sun. Imagine a lifetime of desert driving, top down, head shaved, living on the borrowed promise of loud music and sunscreen free thinking; it's just this kind of life that will turn your skin to aged, brown, paper and leave all your wild ideas like faded articles to a, long forgotten, constitutional right to dream. After all, it's your right to dream of motor cars and high wages, to dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, to dream of being recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position -- even if that means being recognized for stealing words written by someone else, or being recognized as an absolute scavenger of the human condition.

It'll get weird at times too, you can be sure of that. There will be moments where the ride will pick you upside down and shake you until your insides are on your outside. It's not even a living thing -- despite how it sometimes might appear -- so don't rightly expect to be able to rely on compassion to save you either. It does as it does and nothing more. It'll toss you around like a rag doll, it'll make sure you land on your feet, it'll steal the gas from your tank and infest your house with fleas. Life will randomly keep the skies sunny at your party, tear your favorite jacket, and lace your brain with enough liquor to keep you quiet and content -- which helps everyone else sleep at night. However, no matter how strange or intense it gets, there's one thing to remember: These is absolutely no excuse to not remain in control of it at all times.

This kind of exposure to the harsh reality of the world is never easy -- but necessary. It's like the Tal Ben-Shahar quote: "I don't believe that things happen for the best, but I do believe in making the best of things that happen" We're never actually in control of what's going to happen to us, and it would be foolish to think anything else. We might be responsible -- which we almost always are -- for what happens to us, but in terms of the cards we're dealt? It's all random. We've just got to make the best plays can we have with what we've been given and, if the cards are shit, hope we can bluff well enough to convince the rest of the world we're sitting on gold. I have no doubt this is why Texas Hold 'Em poker has gotten so popular among the working crowd in the last few years.

So just remember, there are few facts in life that always seemed relevant, living, but the most pertinent one of all always seemed to remain 'Isn't it a little odd to see a Kangaroo?'. That one, above all, will always stand with you. No matter how weird it gets, or how strange everything seems, as long as you're not seeing Kangaroos in the California forest? You'll be all right.

Use that wisdom to sedate the noxious anxiety and dam up the endless flow of questions in your mind. Carry a coin in your pocket and flip it, once a day, to make a decision for you. Stick with the flow, and let life be what life is good at being. Find a way to enjoy the days it rains on your parade, chews on your soul, curdles your soup, or shatters your favorite bottle of spirits. Life has got a way of taking one raw turn after another lately for a lot of people, and it's getting harder and harder to stay on top of that wave. If, even for a moment, you can take home a small victory -- like Australia in Risk -- you defend the hell out of it and hang onto it with everything you've got.

Stop screaming at the Television, stop screaming at the headline, stop shouting at the internet chat room, be weary of Kangaroos in a forest where they don't belong, and be careful you're not chasing black rabbits when you're looking for life. Hold onto who you are and what you love when the waves get rough, never think you'll land on the shore, but always hope you're lucky enough to make it, never give up dreaming, never stop risking something. Understand you deserve it all only if you earn it all, work hard for what you want, play harder for what you demand. Take no prisoners and give no quarter to the desert and never leave home without some water and a towel.

Don't panic -- everything is, as always, going to be all right.