So far, it is mostly none of the above.

The photo site is bursting with photos, with many more to add. There are two issues there. 1) There are about as man people who visit THAT blog as visit THIS one. And that person isn’t all that interested in buying photos. B) The software that allowed me to actually SELL my photos randomly stopped working. Good thing my fan doesn’t want to buy anything!

My Don Quixote complex is running strong. It doesn’t help matters that I actually made a good call recently, not only giving PAX Nation the illusion of exposure, but gaining a few new members, no doubt as crazy as I am. This has encouraged me to push harder, to the point that PAX Nation has now become my main focus. I still want to wander the world. I just might be tilting with all the windmills I encounter along the way.

I also continue to not write my books. By the time I write The Tao of Picnic, my memory of events might border on fiction … which may actually improve said events. Ironically, much of it is already written, since a lot of it will come directly from this blog. I just need to catch that disease called discipline. Unfortunately to catch something one needs to be exposed to it, and my social circle (which essentially includes me and Brown Dog), is severely lacking of infected folk.

I am not sure if I should be proud or ashamed that I managed to make an update for any interested in this blog into a commercial for some of my OTHER blogs. I may not be infected by discipline, but apparently the advertising bug has gotten into my system. Until the next time folks! Maybe I will have something more interesting to share!

The post The digital journey continues first appeared on thrumyeyes.

This is my equivalent to hitting the snooze button on an alarm clock. Every morning Brown Dog enthusiastically and urgently prances about, essentially saying “Gottagogottagogotaago!!,” while her mean and unfeeling companion hasn’t the energy to crawl out of bed yet. This has become part of the routine. On some levels, there is resentment in these actions: I went on this grand adventure, and all I have to show for it is a dog I did not ask for. Yay me!

Don’t get me wrong. I love Brown Dog. Precisely because of that, she is often the target of my frustrations with life in general … and with myself. She has an exuberant energy that drives me crazy … mostly because I envy it. The irony being that my NOT having it is essentially my own fault. And any resentment is really just my inherent allergy to responsibility. Truth be told … once I actually get the walkies project started … it usually turns into a moment of peace (if often slightly agitated peace thanks to B. D.), reflection, and … believe it or not … learning. I take these moments to appreciate: appreciate what is around me; appreciate what I DO have and what I don’t; appreciate the simple fact of living. These moments are also good for letting the mind wander in nomadic bliss. My thoughts are often random, but I will explore that randomness to its very edges.

This morning, as I admired the early morning light on the autumn colors, the chill, brisk air instilled some nifty thoughts in my head. One that I may actually pursue (let my inner inventor run for a change) is the concept of a treadmill for dogs. As seems to be the norm for this time of year, Brown Dog’s focus was torn between the desperate need to GO NOW!!, the finicky need to GO HERE!!, and the distracting need to  CHASE SQUIRREL!! Basically a typical morning’s walk. Nearing the end of the walk, our slightly frayed, “ghetto” rope of a leash again burned my fingers as B. D. once again decided THAT squirrel was Public Enemy Number One. So I said to her: “They are everywhere, girl. If you chase them all, we’ll never get anywhere.”

With an eye awakening smack, the cold air put its fingers to my cheek and I suddenly GOT IT!

I was talking about squirrels to a dog, but there was a profound lesson in what I had just said for myself (and maybe others). This simple statement so well applies to many other things … but most applicably in MY life to dreams and … causes. Dreams are everywhere. So are battles to be fought. One of the temptations an Idealistic Thinker faces is the need to follow ALL the dreams; the need to fight ALL the battles.

THAT way lays eternal frustration.

Maybe part of the reason I feel so adrift these days is because I have CAST myself adrift. If I keep chasing everything that catches my attention, my own personal squirrels, I will never get anywhere. To reinforce this message, B. D. suddenly got another scent, and started towing me at the cost of her own breathing … again. This time I said, “Stop choking yourself chasing after something you will never catch!!”

The cold air slapped me in the face again as soon as I said this.

Yep. Brown Dog is one fine teacher!

The post Brown Dog teaches … first appeared on thrumyeyes.

Before I set foot on the Appalachian Trail, it was pretty clear that there would be a lot of climbing involved … clear to anyone who has ever seen a mountain. It was less clear to the middle-aged couch potato who still thought of himself as 18 how STRENUOUS and painful some of that climbing would be. But without fail, reaching the summit always carried a sense of achievement; frequently a sense of awe; and all too often a sense of severe pain and hunger. Yet we continued on, sometimes because we really had no choice if we wanted continued survival, but usually simply because that is what we do. But as I have no doubt mentioned many times before, my life is governed by irony. Little did I know that the pains and rewards of that first part of my current journey … a mere hiking a few hundred miles through varying terrain with a house on my back … PALED in comparison to what came next.

Without getting into TOO much detail (after all that is what my best-selling yet to be book is about), suffice to say that the emotional and spiritual part of this journey that has defined the last couple of months is to the hike like The Incredible Hulk is to the kid that always got stuffed into the locker. If you want a less S.A.T.-ish metaphor, or better yet clear speech, it was downright HARD! I reached the depths of despair … not even being able to envision continuing another moment … yet still continued. I found moments of pure nirvanic bliss, so content that if my life stopped at THAT moment, I would know the Question to the Ultimate Answer … yet still continued. I did manly battle with inner demons galore, with many a scar … yet still continued.

And here I am, at the proverbial peak … wondering what is next.

Now I can finally start this blog post. Since I spent so much time in prepping you, I’ll shorten things up a bit. What is next is to continue climbing. No more path to WALK on? Guess I am going to have to fly now. So my new life plan in one long-winded set of words: yet another website (which is also a business) up and running; one old website in the process of being revamped and also turned into a business; two more websites to be upgraded to join the team; all to fall under one shell that also will require a website; three books to finish writing; going to massage school to round off the plan; all this with no steady place to live and no active income yet.

I think I got it all.

Stay tuned folks, it is really starting to get interesting now!!

The post What comes after the summit? first appeared on thrumyeyes.

If I didn’t believe it before, I sure do now. What we NEED and what we WANT are rarely the same thing. Maybe true understanding will come when they are.

I have learned so much in recent weeks, ironically much of it in the last few days. I expected to face physical and mental challenges on this adventure … what I did NOT expect is to come face to face with my deepest fears; to stare despair directly in the face. I recently posted this in the Social Media world:

Achieving the heights means looking deeply into the depths, and going the other way. A true test of character – how we deal with despair.

This particular lesson I learned in a very direct and painful way. I have had a VERY rough few days. Anyone who actually bothers to follow me online in any way may have noticed a trend in my recent status updates … this was all part of my new lesson. Without getting repetitive, I will just list a few things that I have most recently learned (or re-learned yet again). Maybe others will take something out of it … maybe no one will even see the list. Either way, putting it in words ensures the lessons, taking it from the realm of ephemeral to the solid state. Maybe I will actually benefit this time?

Life lesson time:

• This is really a reminder that I seem to keep needing … EVERYTHING in life is based on choice. Love, hate, happy, sad, pain, pleasure … EVERYTHING. The image we see in the mirror is perceived ENTIRELY how we CHOOSE to. You don’t like it, change your perception.
• Ultimately, the only person we can rely on to make our lives what we want is ourselves. Others will come along who will help or hinder, but only WE can make ourselves into the person we want to be. The moment we relinquish this power to another we have basically failed ourselves.
• A sense of humor may be even more important than a sense of hope.
• Life is ALWAYS precious. ALL life. Anyone who does not recognize this fact has seriously missed the point.
• Barring some drastic cosmic event, tomorrow will always be another day. Which means that WHATEVER may have happened today will now be the past. Instead of living life as if today would be our last, maybe we should live it as if today is our first; as if we were just born. Maybe if we choose to experience life with the wonder of discovery instead of in a desperate effort to not miss anything, we would have fewer difficulties.
• Happiness is not really my ultimate goal. ALL emotions have value. The key is to incorporate them all into the Ideal Me, to own them, not to let them own me. The simple truth is sometimes there really is nothing to be happy about. Pretending it does not make the “bad” things go away. But if we just remember that difficulties are ALWAYS temporary, and do our best to do what we NEED to do, happiness will return.

This list could go on and on. Like I said, I got slammed with a barrage of epiphanies recently. But I guess the rest of the lessons have to wait for the proverbial book. Which is one of the things I need to complete to finally make me the me I wanna be.

Stay tuned. Maybe I will start getting it right this time around.

The post Walk a mile in my shoes … or better yet in my mind first appeared on thrumyeyes.

He walked. And walked. And walked. Then walked some more. As he walked, worlds were created and destroyed. Thoughts paraded in an endless stream, and then were no more. Sadness opened the floodgates, anger beat holes in the walls, and curiosity did its show and tell. And the man continued to walk.

Sometimes the little voice inside the man, the voice of wisdom … the voice of censure … the voice of creativity … the still small voice that should be heard but is so often ignored … spoke to him. It said that maybe he should ask for directions. The man answered his voice, “How can I ask directions when I don’t know where I am going?” The voice then said that there were people wondering where he was … maybe even concerned about him. Again the man flippantly answered, “I’d tell them where I was if I actually knew.”

The man walked on.

The still small voice, not to be deterred, got wily. It appealed to the one thing the man rarely ignored … his hunger. With this backup, the man decided that he would stop walking … at least for the moment. He found the nearest place to sit and eat (at this point no longer so near), and stopped his feet for a bit. The still small voice took advantage of the pause, and finally got the lost man’s attention.

After eating, the man considered what the voice had been telling him. He also considered maybe actually picking a destination. As these thoughts bounced around the emptiness inside, a couple with a cute young girl came in to order some food. Shortly thereafter, a woman came in with an equally cute and young boy. As far as the man could tell, these people did not know each other.

This did not deter the young girl. She was so excited to see the young boy, that they were immediately friends. For several minutes they interacted on a level of pure joy, giggling and laughing. It was a pure, innocent moment. It made everyone there, including the lost man, smile with the simple love and happiness of the moment. The man thought to himself, “Yes, that’s it.” The still small voice agreed.

Suddenly the persistent shadows; the enemies of innocence, came rushing into the room. It dawned on the man that his enjoyment of the moment would so easily mark him as something not to be trusted in this world gone mad. He was a nameless wanderer; a stranger. If ANYTHING happened to these children in the immediate future he would be the automatic scapegoat, the demon in the room.

The moment was made. The moment was lost.

Shortly after this stark and ugly thought, the little boy left, and the little girl slipped into a screaming tantrum. The man, always alert for lessons to be learned, wondered what the moral of THIS story was.

Even the still small voice has not answered him yet.

The post A morality tale first appeared on thrumyeyes.

For instance this particular tale, which is labeled (now somewhat inaccurately) a Tale of  a Trail, has grown so exotic that even those of us living it are not completely believing all aspects. It started as an attempt for two slightly scarred by life kindred spirits trying to find something they both felt they had lost. Months later, we both are in the process of exploring what it is we may have actually needed … again ironically barely following the path we set out on. Mark, Idiot Extraordinaire and Dream Starter, thought he would regain his life and heal by a healthy little stroll through the woods with a friend. He may have indeed regained life and healing … yet he never even set foot on the trail. Not only has he become a master artist that can still be successful without having to spare an ear, but he is returning to his literary genius persona with a …

 … NEW BLOG …

In the mean time, I am still on walk-about, trying to figure IT all out. I am more and more realizing that I need to stop looking for what I want and allow my needs to be heard. Somewhere in there, I hope to write a book or three, sell some photo art, and maybe even accidentally help an occasional soul in the process.

I like to think I am becoming more and more “Picnic” as I keep stepping forward. Good or bad, Picnic is gonna be a damn enjoyable story!!
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The post The best story ever told … for real this time … first appeared on thrumyeyes.

Now that the nature of my journey has changed, I am beginning to see the world differently. Where I have been … Damascus … is a crossroads of sorts. Physically it is a bit of nowhere that somehow connects many different pathways. It is nature and man-made trying to find a balance. Yet spiritually, it is much more. I call it the Doorway to What If. Because it is connected to both the human world and the world humans are trying to leave behind, I am still inundated with all that I was escaping (recovering?) from. Every time I see or hear the news; every time I see the worst of humanity in action … all I want to do is run back to the woods … which is easy in Damascus. On the other hand, at times it is a struggle for fringe dwellers to easily survive the area.

Thus for the moment the adventure once again moves to Ohio. It is not the state of my dreams. I have never even considered it as tops on any list of places to visit. But I am here now, and may be for a while. Fortunately I have learned (remembered?) one simple little fact that oh so many seem to forget often …

THERE IS BEAUTY EVERYWHERE!

As the darker side of life invades our senses, we start forgetting this. The ugly; the dirty; the undesirable somehow claim our focus, blinding us from that refreshment that our souls so need. But the beauty is there if we remember how to see it. It takes effort at times, but a single flower; a smiling child can still be seen in even a war-torn country. And sometimes it is just that small bit of hope that keeps us going.

Not that Ohio is a hopeless place. But the reality so far has set straight some preconceptions I did not even know I had. These are a few moments and sights I caught the other day. I know many who have followed this journey might be disappointed by the new directions it is moving in, but I hope there is still something of interest in what I share.

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The post Open your eyes! first appeared on thrumyeyes.

Anyway, I spent a few hours this morning expanding the few sentences that I realized were the start of my story. It is interesting to me, that now tha I am specifically trying to write about my OWN adventures, the writing is that much more difficult. I have dabbled in writer’s block before, but usually find that it is just my own demons trying to catch my attention. But somehow with me as the actual FOCUS of … I don’t know … reality fiction? … I am not sure what to say. I guess I want to keep things interesting without tooting my own horn too much. Didn’t expect it would be that much of a challenge. But then again little of my life in recent months has been as expected.

Possibilities for my near future: I will actually finish A manuscript. I will maybe sell some of my photos (even though it goes totally against my grain) and maybe even make a few bucks. I will do a road trip to Ohio with my partner in crime in an attempt to recoup some (or all) of the money spent in recent weeks, refilling coffers that really should not be emptying in the first place. I also am dabbling with the idea of making some web pages for folk … also with the possibility of earning from that. The first challenge is getting over the to me rather awkward concept of charging for things that I am perfectly willing to do for free. Someday I may manage to fit in this backwards culture of ours yet … though I have my doubts.

Here is the intro to what I think I will be calling The Tao of Picnic. Let me know if it is something that you might want to read:

How do legends become legends? What makes deeds great enough that they need to be shared across the land? Is it the actions that make the hero? Or is being a character of legend something we are born with? I suppose it pays to have a good advertising team. It’s all about spin.

I would love to share the tale of a legendary character here. I would love to give the exciting details of his journey, a journey like no other. Yes I would love to share such an exciting tale, but sadly I can only work with what I have. THIS particular story is just about lil ole me. Or more specifically, some recent adventures of mine.

“Who,” one might reasonably ask, “ARE you?”

I guess that might be a good place to begin.

It all started some four plus decades ago in a classic example of industrial suburban. In Brockton, MA, halfway between Boston and Providence, a small city that grew from shoes and boxing, trying its best not to become another fallen paradise … in other words a typical small industrial city, one condominium complex bordering a large park was welcoming a new arrival. Without revealing too much too soon, suffice to say that that new arrival, a quiet and inquisitive (not so) little guy, went through the cauldron of youth in suburbia to grow into a nature loving, out-of-the-box thinking, wandering soul with a lust for learning. This is That Guy’s story.

I was That Guy. I guess technically I still AM That Guy. Yet I have learned enough throughout my personal adventures to understand that we all are like the proverbial water in a river, constantly changing, never the same we were a moment ago. The man I am now, as I navigate my current adventures, is That Guy Plus. That Guy is the foundation of who I am now, and will always be part of who I become.

Is this a sufficient introduction?

Inherent in the human condition is a visceral need for labels; reference points in our maps of reality. Since I am guessing most of my audience here will be human, I will attach a few labels to myself. I was born Steven Howard Kramer. That has morphed through many incarnations, finally mostly settling on Steve for family, and Kramer for everyone else. Until the recent adventures, that is, in which Picnic was introduced to the world. Yes folks, I am Picnic.

Ultimately that is what this story is all about. This is the evolution of Picnic.

The post The Tao of Picnic first appeared on thrumyeyes.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrj56x18LW8]

If you want a better look at the individual pics, they can be found here. I am also in the process of trying to set up a website so I can actually sell prints of the better photos. If anyone has any desire to have one of the accidentally good pictures hanging on their wall, contact me and we will talk. Or you can inundate The Idiot with painting requests. I hope some pleasure is gained, and maybe y’all can get an inkling of what I have been experiencing in the last few months.

The post Anyone for a visual journey? first appeared on thrumyeyes.

How do legends become legends? What makes deeds great enough that they need to be shared across the land? Is it the actions that make the hero? Or is being a character of legend something we are born with? I suppose it pays to have a good advertising team. It’s all about spin.

I would love to share the tale of a legendary character here. I would love to give the exciting details of his journey, a journey like no other. Yes I would love to share such an exciting tale, but sadly I can only work with what I have. THIS particular story is just about lil ole me. Or more specifically, some recent adventures of mine.

“Who,” one might reasonably ask, “ARE you?”

I guess that might be a good place to start.

Everyone has a tale to tell. And each tale is unique to the teller, even if it may share much with another’s story. In the last few months, I have shared parts of my personal story with many different people, while learning bits and pieces of their own tales. All the snippets are blending together in a mosaic that to me display human life in all its complicated simplicity. Truth is often truly stranger than fiction.

I may still be wondering where this my adventure will take me, but it has become clear to me that wherever it goes, I won’t be going alone. A book was always part of the “plan”. The above quote might just be the first few sentences. I think I am now officially writing THREE books.

Just imagine if I not only manage to finish one, but actually get it PUBLISHED. Stranger things HAVE happened.

The post Once upon a time … first appeared on thrumyeyes.