When I first learned about Straight Edge, I immediately respected the shit out of them. not feeding into the mental avoidance culture that is drugs and alcohol, is punk as fuck. It’s even more punk to abstain from substances just to flick off the corporations that profit off their societal normalization. I can’t claim to be straight edge because I enjoy the occasional drag of an evening cigarette, but the idea has always sat fondly in my soul.

Instead of tobacco, I’ve chosen to draw my line at an even more normalized drug…just for shits and gigs. For the past year or so, I’ve foregone the intake of pretty much every caffeinated beverage. Coffee, energy drinks, Tea, weird energy supplements…I haven’t been wired for over twelve months. I decided to do this for a few reasons:

• To test my mental fortitude.
• To cut out another pointless purchase from life.
• To feel my body function and energize with natural clarity.
• I think caffeine is just a scam that makes people more tired.

In some cultures, people fast just to prove how dedicated and mentally strong they can be. In other cultures, we award those who are willing to devour a massive amount of hot dogs just to prove how capable their bodies are. David Blaine froze himself in ice, Forrest Gump ran across the country multiple times, and I refuse to drink a coffee in the morning to jack my eyelids open. Life is pretty mundane. Sometimes you just have to do weird spunky shit to make it more interesting.

I’m a pretty big proponent of not buying stuff unless it’s absolutely necessary, or factors into a hobby that makes life more bearable. Coffee and energy drinks were not one of those things for me, so I decided to cut them out. I like to think that I’m one less cup being added to the garbage, and one less can required in the international supply chain.

I fueled my body with alcohol and energy drinks for far too long, offsetting constant hangovers with artificial highs. I craved stimulus after stimulus just to maintain a mental status quo. I’ve decided i don’t want to chase anymore, I just want to live at a natural level. What my body produces is what I recieve and nourish with. Its nice, it’s simple, and it helps me sleep better at night. Although, I’m not completely infallible. I still fall victim to the temptation of a cigarette buzz from time to time.

I’ve noticed that the people who complain most about being tired, are those who intake the most caffeine. I don’t know what causes it since I’m not a scientific man, but the correlation has not gone unnoticed. If you wake up, need an immediate coffee, and can’t make it past noon without mentioning your drowsiness and need to pour another cup…it doesn’t really seem like coffee is the great solution that you think it is. After cutting out caffeine, my days have been as energy filled as ever. Sure, I feel like I got hit by a bus every time I attempt to get out of bed in the morning. But as the day goes on, I feel like a thoroughbred stallion ready to keep on racing. I attribute this to as neat little trick that I figured out: I just start my day in the shittiest possible way, that way everything is an improvement from that point on. Immediately after I wake up, I take a shower and blast the last few minutes with ice cold water. At first it sucked ass. I dreaded turning the knob in the opposite direction. Soon it became routine. It sucked, but the shock became therapy. The cold is now my reward, and turning the knob is my ultimate natural high. A freezing cold head, first thing in the morning, forces my brain to wake up and stay vitalized for as long I need it throughout the day.

I rest easy and live easier with a cold shower and no coffee everyday.

Not every vacation needs to be a relaxing getaway from the moans and drones of our mundane lives. Cruise? no thank you. All inclusive? I’d rather not. Hotel in Miami? That’s pushing it. We tend to treat vacations as rewards for our hard work. We say we deserve a break from our daily grind. We say we want to experience the thrills of the greater world to make up for our extensive stay on the wheely cubicle chair. I hate to break it to you, but pumping your fist in a European nightclub next to folks trying to escape from the same monotonous cycle as yourself, barely counts as a “thrilling experience”. The world is far more vast than the attractions you see on website sidebar ads and your instagram feed. First of all, we don’t deserve anything…more on this later. Second, the vacation you’re so keen on “finding yourself” on won’t really come from a guided hiking tour of the Thailand coast. These are things people do to relax and have fun. The experiences are fine, and the things you’ll see are totally cool and neat. I do get the appeal, and I really shouldn’t discount it, but when you avoid “fun” and “relaxing” on your next travel trip, you’ll just never look at vacation the same way again.

Vacations are great and all, but they’ll rarely ever open your eyes to the real experiences that exist outside the realm of a carefully curated trip. Experiences come from the nooks and crannies of places that you never would have thought to explore in the first place. They come from the lives of regular people, in regular places, doing regular things, with no intention of making a buck off you or getting a good review. Sure, there are outlier cases, but you know what I mean. To really bust open your brain to awe experiences, you have to understand that vacations are really just meant to be an escape, and escaping from something really isn’t all that fun. It’s honestly, kind of depressing. Don’t vacation, travel instead. travel is a leap of faith, an activity with no bounds, and will always be a unique and interesting experience.

For more adventurous, thrilling travel, try following these few simple rules:

First rule: Avoid any travel curated by someone besides yourself and your pals. Fuck a tour guide. Fuck a travel agency. Most of all, fuck anyone who tells you that you can’t experience something properly unless you do it to their very specific way. Travel is the freedom to go wherever the wind decides to blow you next. Curated travel is a ball and chain.

Second rule: Do it as cheap as you possibly can. When I travel, I find the cheapest way to get from point A to point B. This means cheap flights, lots of road trips, camping in tents, sleeping in cars, and walmart shopping trips. By keeping a tight budget, you can travel with less items to carry and keep track of. Less items is always a plus if you’re Led Nudd. Traveling with a tight budget also allows you to save for the future…which leads to more travel. Traveling without frivolous spending is just an extension of the Led Nudd lifestyle. You’re not escaping from Led Nudd, like you would on a vacation, you’re just extending the philosophy deeper into an additional part of your life.

Third rule: Be open to doing things that may seem difficult while traveling. Vacation is for taking breaks, travel is for embracing hardship. When you think of travel, you may imagine lying back on a reclining beach chair and waking up with a tan, but I challenge you to reject this. If you want to experience something real, something truly magical, try hitting the road with no plans for your nightly sleeping accommodations. Try making your meals. Try walking really really far just to see how far you can go. Trust a stranger. Break a law. Climb something in your immediate view. Challenge yourself to do uncomfortable things. When you travel harder, you’re traveling right. You’re gaining real experiences that bond with your brain in uniquely useful ways. You’ll learn something and you’ll have memories that you’ll never forget.

The next time someone suggests a vacation in the form of a cruise, attend, but spend your time in the arcade, hosting an underground skeeball league. Do something bold. Go to a biker bar. Walk across your state. Tent camp in your closest unregulated woods. Challenge the definition of vacation and get ready to completely change your perspective of the world around you. There’s so much more to see than what you’ll see trying to see all you think you want to see.

This one is about the normalization of greed.

When you think about greed, I’d imagine your brain drifts towards Jeff Bezos or Donald Trump or some other bazillionaire. I’d agree. I think they’re pretty greedy. But thats not what I’d like to discuss.

I’ll start with some reflecting that been doing. I’ve decided that I don’t want to sell anything that I create. I’ve been thinking about art and how we decide on pricing it. The goal seems to be to get the price as high as someone is willing to pay for it. Premium products are created with the intention of being sold well above their true worth. We inflate value through limiting supply and increasing demand. Everyone in this space seems to want to get the biggest bang for their buck. Those who figure out how to succeed at banging bucks then transition into commodifying their ability to do so. They create courses, sell advice, write books, garner views for profit. We’ve turned what could be a space for unfettered passion and joyful creation into a space where our joy is twisted into a selling point to turn a profit.

I get it, the reality of true unfettered passionate creation for most people is that is just not economically feasible. We justify the commodification of our work as a way to sustain it financially. If we weren’t making money from it, we wouldn’t be able to afford to do it in the first place. I, however, beg to differ. I have a job outside of the creative work that I do. It’s a full time job in a boring industry that I’d consider almost anti fulfilling. However, it pays my bills and then some. It allows me the opportunity to create by providing the financial backing for it. I think about leaving this job and focusing fully on my passions almost everyday, but i’ve decided that the creative freedom it gives me is just too good to give up. I could start selling my work to sustain it, but then I’d have priced someone out of my market. I don’t want a market, I just want my work to get out there.

I’ve put myself in a position where I’m able to afford giving my work away. The world needs more people who are willing to get out there and just give things away. Give away your time to those who need it more. Give away your money to those who need it more. Give away your art to those who need it more. Maybe it’s not even about giving to those who need it more, but just giving in general. Make a sacrifice to be able to give. Don’t feed into the normalization of “getting your piece of the action”. Create the action and try your hardest not to commodify it. Become wealthy if you wish, but maybe don’t use your art to do so. Use your wealth to sustain your ability to create, and avoid using your ability to create as a crutch for your wealth.

I honestly think this is the greed we should be most worried about. It’s not obvious and it seeps into society quietly, killing everything we once regarded as good. Let’s be the ones to force back this creep. Stop profiting, make a sacrifice for something you love, and put your passion out into the world at a cost that doesn’t commodify it. if you really love what you create, you’d get a job you hate to sustain it.

Jeff Bezos may have a shit ton of money, but let’s be real, we’re really the ones negatively impacting the greed we claim to be so against.

I know almost nothing about Zen. I’ve never studied it and have payed very little attention to it. However, there is a Zen “koan” from “The Book of Serenity” that I have heard and taken a liking too. Here it is:

A monk asked Zhaozhou, “I have just entered the monastery: please give me some guidance.”

Zhaozhou said, “Have you had breakfast yet?”

The monk said, “Yes I have eaten.”

Zhaozhou continues, “Then go wash your bowl.”

Apparently Zhaozhou was a teacher of Zen known for his simple yet deep instructions. He speaks in a language that is direct and rooted in everyday life. I think this is the reason why his teaching here has recently stuck with me.

Sometimes after i finish eating my breakfast, I place my bowl in the sink rather than washing it out. Unfortunately, I am actually pretty bad at this specific teaching. However, the instruction of washing your bowl after eating from it is a concept that can be applied to much more than just bowls and breakfast. I think of life as a series of consecutive moments, each setting the groundwork for the moment that should follow it. There is the past moment, the present moment, and the moment next to come. The past moment has no real significance, as it has already happened and cannot influence anything further than the presently occuring moment that it has laid the groundwork for. The present moment is what is currently being done, and is where our energy should be directed. Once the present moment is completed, it is moved to the past moment, and our energy is shifted onto the moment next in line. Eating breakfast was the present moment, but when finished, washing the bowl shifted to the present. Life is a series of eating breakfasts and washing bowls. Moments pass, and moments next in line take their place. Live presently by always doing the next most reasonable thing. When clothes are dirty, put them in the hamper. When the hamper is full, put it in the wash. When the wash is complete, fold the clothes. When the clothes are folded, put them back into the dresser. These are not chores, but rather sequential moments to be carried out with mindfulness. Let go of classifying the difficult things in life as chores, and reclassify them as moments. Live in the present moment and let the next moment in line naturally take its place. Don’t hold onto past moments and always be ready for what the next moment has to offer.

We own our lives and all the moments that fall within them. It is our personal responsibility to wash our bowl after breakfast is complete. It is our bowl, we must take care of it. We’re responsible for taking care of all of the moments that fall within the scope of our lives. While, like me, you may not want to wash out your bowl after eating from it, it is your responsibility to do so. Thus is life. More importantly, embrace that “thus is life” and learn to appreciate it. While I sometimes do struggle to wash out my bowl right away, I am mindful that this is a moment that I’ll need to be present with soon. Putting away my laundry, packing my lunch before bed, rising from bed after my first alarm, and preparing a home cooked meal are just a few of the moments in my life that come much easier to me than washing my bowl. I respect them as moments that need to happen, and I look forward to the next moments that follow them when they are complete.