Facebook Archives: I can’t sleep. Who can these days, amiright?

This is a Facebook post from June 4th, 2020. This was written during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. I wrote a lot on Facebook during that time, I like a lot of what was written here and wanted to save it here for posterity as Facebook slowly smothers the life out of it’s platform. -Damian June 2024 I can’t sleep. Who can these days, amiright? I told the lady I was going to stay up and read, and sure…I did a little of that, but mostly I sat in the chair and thought about the future. I felt good about those thoughts, but then I sat down here and started reading Facebook and instantly regretted feeling good. Because, let’s face it. We’re all doomed aren’t we? I just finished the book Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. It was a gift from the lady, her favorite book. She was irritated that I didn’t read it right after Christmas, when she gave it to me. But books have a life and a mind of their own. They come to you when you least expect them, and when they open up to you…. When they truly open up to you… it’s magic. This book came to me and opened up at the right place and time. Jitterbug Perfume is about an ancient king who finds his first white hair in his beard. It’s decreed by the law of his land that he is to die of “old age.” Old Alobar isn’t ready to die and decides to run from death. He continues to run from death and somehow discovers the secrets to an everlasting life. The secrets are wonderful, but lonely. Towards the end of the book, I don’t think I’m spoiling this for anyone, but a random black character is murdered by police in New Orleans and there are violent protests and vigils for this character. But it’s a book about living forever and does this character really die? They don’t talk about him too much in the book. It’s a white book and made for liberal white people, but it has been on my mind for the last few days. Reading the chapters about this character’s death, while simultaneously watching the news was…. I don’t have the words for those feelings. Incredible is not a large enough word. His character was just a token. Created by a white man to die after a few humble sentences or paragraphs. I’m not a smart man. I’ve never been good at looking at the metaphors in novels. Maybe his death was represented in that way on purpose, and it’s the times we are living in that makes me evaluate what that character means. ya know? But that’s not what sticks with me about the book. The book is about how Alobar decides to change his world. He does so by breaking the chains of his oppressors, which are DEATH and the rules. It’s an interesting and fun book and I can’t wait to read more of Tom Robbins. But I keep thinking about how the book says Alobar learns to become immortal because he shirks his role in the greater scheme of life and rebirth. He decides not to be a part of the SYSTEM, but to be an individual. AN INDIVIDUAL. That’s his first step to immortality. Becoming an individual. But isn’t that the problem we have in AMERICA right now? Isn’t’ that the virus we are spreading to the whole world? ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.instead of….WE WE WE WE WE WE WE WE WE WE. They’re the same letters. Just upside down. No longer do we live in the country of “We the People…” We live in a country of “ME!!!!!! The People!!!!”We’re a country of people who want what’s best for US, but when we say us… we mean… “Me. ME! MEEEEEE!!!!!!!” Me the people. Me the People. Me the People. Me the People. Look, I know I’m telling almost all of you reading everything you already know. But we’ve been living “Me the people” our entire lives and it’s not really working is it? The rich get richer, and the poor keep dying when they don’t have too. Who cares who can live forever, if the masses are dying in our streets. I see the “All lives Matter” posts and comments, and hell, I thought the same thing at first. All lives do matter, but WHY IS MY LIFE WORTH MORE THAN OTHERS? WHY?!?! I struggled with these ideas when my sister died some ten/eleven years ago. Why her and not me? Why George Floyd and not me? Why? Why? Why? Why? What is a life worth? How much? How many tears? I wonder how many people have seen a dead body. I wonder how many people have watched a person die in-front of their own eyes. How would that change their world? When I think of the “ALL LIVES MATTER!!!!” People I’ve been thinking of Jitterbug Perfume and the individualism it either taught or warned against. These are ignorant people, not bad people. Just fucking ignorant. They are just as much a product of the system as the dead black men laying in our streets. It’s been hammered into our collective heads since birth that we should be looking out for number one. You know why? Because communism is EVIL. Caring for other people is EVIL. I just know that we can not keep looking at the world and think that we belong as individuals. We have to start looking at the world from a place of WE. Or, I dunno…. Here’s another half brained metaphor: The earth is a symbiotic organism. We have to work together, or cancer seeps into those cells and destroys it. Each of us carry that cancer inside us. So when we do not work to form a more cohesive unit, we die and we destroy others. And WE! AMERICANS! are doing it every day. Dying.

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Full moon madness

Who else is feeling this FULL MOON juju? Claire says I’m feeling it extra hard because it’s a full moon in Leo and I’m one of the most Leo ever, but that’s magic and malarkey… isn’t it?I’m sitting here tonight in my living room in Napa with the Full moon floating right outside our patio door. It’s moonlight is the only thing lighting this living room, other than the glow of this laptop. I’m sitting here soaking in the night and I’m sitting here doing what I always do in these late evenings, thinking about life, the universe and everything. Claire and I sat back tonight and under the moonlight, we talked about our future.

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Notes on Depression: The Great Fondness of Now

The Great Fondness of NowBy Damian Burford I’ve had half a pot of coffee and I keep writing way to much nonsense on this here idiot box and then not posting it. I apologize for the humble/brag post, but this is meant to be an inspirational post after this last weekend’s “World Suicide Awareness Day” & Trve Brewing’s event for Brandon Gay, who took his life last year. I was talking to my friend Kelley the other night and she asked me how I was doing, and I told her about the new restaurant and how I wish it was a little busier, but then she looked me dead in my eyes and asked me, “No, HOW ARE YOU DOING?” She made sure to enunciate every single word, so I would know she was serious. She wanted to know how I was doing. Not some bullshit catch up answer. She wanted the honest to goodness truth. I sat there and thought for a moment before answering with a thought that pops into my head late at night when I’m sitting on the balcony, watching the world turn by me. I sit out there and I think to myself: “When I look back on these days I will look back on them with great fondness.” Sounds cold and heartless, but these are my halcyon days. These days are great and amazing and I’m trying my hardest to take the advice that was given to Kurt Vonnegut: “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” I feel the happiest, healthiest and best I have ever felt in my entire god damned life of misery. I didn’t know how much of a sad sack piece of shit I had been for years, wallowing in my self-made misery. I look back at these Facebook on this Day posts, and I want to tell that angry, shy, scared little boy that things will be alright. You’re only acting out because you don’t actually understand that you are the architect for your own misery. I spent so much time wanting and needing to be a part of something to be excepted that I didn’t realize I had to work to except myself first. In the immortal words of RuPaul Charles: “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? “ I want to tell that stupid little brat of a man, “One day you’ll add those tools to the toolbox you need to not only get by in the world with more ease, but will allow you to share and help others find their ease.” Actually, I think I did this the other night while staring into the mirror after too much nighttime sleep aid. I want to tell that whiny fool, “One day you’ll start working on yourself and you’ll meet the most wonderful and supportive partner who wants to be with you because she sees how hard you work on growing and changing into the best person you can be.” I don’t think that younger boy would have listened. I just have to learn things the hard way, but you don’t have to. The point of this is, If my dumbass can get here, so can you. And If I can get here once, I can get here again. I can do it. You can do it. We can do it. I want to keep ranting and raving and telling you how I did it, but we’re all different beasts. What worked for me, might not work for you, but you have to be open to making yourself a better person. And each and every day I feel like I’m a better person than I was before and I’m just going to keep going in that direction. I get it why people are so annoying when they discovered the Gym, diets, religion, philosophy, crystals, astrology, ect… It’s because it’s a secret Pyramid Scheme. Let me explain, when we start to work on ourselves, when things start to really change for the better… you feel great. But you know what feels even better? What makes that dopamine hit even harder? Is getting other people to join up and feel great as well. You’ve opened their world and you get even more hits of dope. So you become the friend of your group selling lifestyles like it’s Mary Kay. So the point of this is that I I wanted to share a few things that have helped me feel this way. It might not work for you. We’re all super different and have different needs/programming/experiences. I’m not trying to sell you supplements here… *Honesty with yourself. (I’m Damian. I have limitations and I have different strengths and weaknesses. Stop comparing yourself to others. Be you.)*Prozac (I get the shakes and stutters sometimes and terrible leg cramps, but it beats feeling like I’m drowning in my own head.Meditation. (It helps quiet all the damned noise and helps me understand that thoughts are more like annoying little pop ups you get on your phone when you haven’t used an app for a while.)*Empathy. (Maybe if I understand people better, I won’t hate them as much.)*Philosophy (Changes the way you look at the world.)*Reading (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Memoirs: Changes the way you look at the world.)*Drag Race (helped me understand just how different we all are, and how we’re still so much the same.)*Too much Weed. (Helps me relaxxxxxxxxxxx, man. Helps me open my mind! Helps me sleep! Just helps me not take the world so god damned seriously!)*Writing (It helps me find my true voice and it just feels good.)*Service (Helping people who need help. Or writing self congratulatory Facebook posts and hope people gleam something from them.)*Being true to yourself and just how fucking weird you are and then embrace it, cause the only people worth knowing are the weirdos. This is

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