Quantum Flux and the Nature of “Reality”

Like the old Robin Williams quote, “Reality… What a Concept!”

In our society, there is this concept called REALITY. Except the more science learns about this World, the concept of this thing called “reality” keeps getting called into smaller and smaller bits (quanta is the term if you will). According to the most cutting edge science, “reality” is more and more the Illusion/Maya of the Ancients (who of course knew a lot more on more subtle levels than Modern Man thought they did).

In “reality” there isn’t One Reality to Rule them all, but some Seven Billion Realities happening every second (or even more frequent) every second of every day.  If many of those who are fiercely fighting tooth and nail against any kind of ‘change’ much less “CHANGE” were to realize this, the quanta would hit the fan.

In my ‘reality,’ there is this thing popularly called ADD, and it’s partner/sister diagnosis ADHD. It’s a condition that more and more of our society are becoming subject to (and those mentioned above are railing at the concept of). It’s (depending on the persons and their politics involved) ‘the Government,’ or ‘The Psychiatric Establishment/Drug companies (/conspiracy),’ or, the really popular opinion, ‘just plain bunk.’

In other words… No One Knows. In my knowing, it is a very real set of conditions. But back to that concept of “reality.”

In each of our lives, in every second of every day, we are being bombarded by sensory input or stimuli. It comes in the form (for most) of the Five Senses. We are bombarded by touch, feel (heat, pressure, etc), sight, sound and to a lesser extent (for most of us – the real Foodies excepted here), taste.

In My Reality, ADD is not a ‘can’t pay attention to anything’ condition, but a ‘pays attention to EVERYTHING’ one. I (and all of you Others like me), did not receive the neural chemistry to block out external stimuli to a sufficient extent that we can focus on ‘only one thing.’ This is most often what leads to that other associated condition (to a greater or lesser extent) called Creativity. The Creative takes in external stimuli and outputs Art (or Dance, or…). Paying Attention to Everything is the central core of the Creative. The Creative takes All of the stimuli and coalesces it into their interpretation of ‘reality.’ In ‘reality’ Van Gogh probably did see the “Starry Night” as he painted it. Which brings me to…

In the Greater Reality, there is not just the physical Illusion of ‘reality’ but also the Energy that Created it. That takes ADD to a whole ‘nother level of complication in the already complicated mess of stimuli. For those of us who are even less able to block out External (and internal) stimuli, the constant flow of Energy on the Meta-Physical level ADD’s to what we’re already receiving.

In my head, I hear all of the objections from those of you who think this is careened into Extreme Woo Woo territory, but a number of those probably stopped reading after the Robin Williams quote (if they even decided to come and read this in the first place. And further into the Woo Woo is that I ‘feel’ many of those thoughts in the day to day moving through and amongst the Rest of Humanity.

In conclusion, (everyone giving a ‘lecture’ always says that)… I experience what most people experience, but manage to block out – through daily rituals like going to work and eating at usually highly specific time, watching TV/films and listening to music. You block the Madness out because you can. I can’t. For me, it comes out in Creativity and the constant influx of Ideas BIG and small. It’s always been like this. I work on one Idea and then another one comes crashing/barging into my consciousness in the next instant. This is why the Daily Rituals and I don’t really work. And it makes it hard for me to find someone else who is both similar to/but different enough to make a relationship work with.

In the end, it’s not that I ‘can’t pay attention to anything,’ I’m always paying attention to, and developing/creating Art, from that Everything. It’s not that I ‘can’t focus on one thing and do that well’ as I have Creations in just about every creative form that I can. Some call that “Genius,” others call it “Madness,” and still others call it ‘just an excuse.’ You should be so unlucky.  

Vanity- vs. Self-Publishing

Two points: Vanity Publishing is just that -- Vanity. Self-Publishing is for those of us who need to publish crafted, polished work that is out of the Publishing Mill (not mass market material).

I am currently adapting a 'novel' into a script. It was 'published' because he could, through one of the legitimate 'vanity' options, Creataspace (self pub arm of Amazon). That said, it is a rough piece of work. He didn't pay to have it edited, and so it is largely unreadable. I am trudging through it because he is the son of a (now gone) friend who helped me in the past.

On the other side is Self-Publishing. That is what I am currently undertaking to do. For that/ towards that end, I have created my own literary imprint (taking the steps to insure that it is as professional as I can make it). I have designed my own Cover (because I am also a fine artist). I laid the interior out being a former graphic artist. I am needing editing because a professional friend says it needs it. My Friends' son did not pay to have it either professionally laid out or edited, therefore it is not going to be 'sell-able' for the near term future.

This is the pit of Vanity Publishing. You can pay to have your 'book' made into a very nice looking book. But as the old saying "you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" comes to mind. Vanity P goes to the 'my story is fantastic, and it's gonna sell a whole lotta copies' person. Everybody has a story to tell, but does it reach beyond their personal world to universal themes? And can they write? This last one is a big one. The Writers Guild of America Registration office is full of 'scripts' better used as doorstops. Poorly written, conceived and executed. The Vanity Presses attract the same 'quality.'

I've been writing for thirty (well, if I consider my first 'short story' **much** longer than that) and have written several thousand pages, and not a couple of hundred, and my work still needs editing. Most Vanity Publishers are not going to go to that extent because... They're not professional writers. They're just a Schmo with a Sto(rey). Interesting to friends and family (my friend's book has sold all of four copies -- one of those to me for adapting purposes), but to very few others. Most people can't discern if their writing is good. There but for Vanity go they...

That said, "Chicken Soup" and "Conversations with God" were both self-published. We all know how that went. Hard work and extra-ordinary material from professionals found their respective markets and were then picked up by traditional publishing houses -- the Dream for all Writers in Self Publishing (when our books are professionally done and contain striking, and not overly familiar, content. I present to you... Self-Publishing.

Creativity and Grant Theft Intellectual

I was discussing the shifting paradigm taking place in the computing and Music and Arts Industries with a colleague a couple of weeks ago, and he said that Artists (Musical or otherwise) should have no expectations of receiving compensation for their work these days. We go to a church where “Circulation of Energy” (i.e. money and time) is the order of the day, and that I shouldn’t have this expectation in the coming shift.

This reflects the general opinion of much of the population these days, that anything that can be ripped or downloaded should be free to have, and this idea is especially coming from the minds of teens and twenty-something’s. None of these folks goes into work at a job they have (if they have a job) and on payday tells their Boss, “You know, I love my job so much, you don’t have to pay me. I just love doing it so much!”

Creatives often spend years, or even decades, learning and then crafting their vision to produce the work that other non-Creative minds take for granted. It doesn’t just spring out of the head and onto the page or CD without great effort and sacrifice. For someone to say, ‘Well, it’s there, and it’s there for me to take’ only disrespects the Artist whose work you value enough to take.

In an age where jobs are being outsourced and Corporations are crying poverty -- ‘We Can’t Afford to have Americans make our products. They expect too much in pay and benefits…’ (this from Corporations who also want to sell those very same products to those same un- and under-employed Americans) – those same Corporations are screaming ‘Theft!’ by this population that has incorporated their tactics.

Creative Work of Art, Music and Dance should be compensated for. The greater the Work, the greater we should expect a return for our investment of time and effort to give you any pleasure you get from our work – not just taken for the ability and the technology to do it.

I have been a Visual Artist for decades. I have done close to a thousand images in drawing, painting, multi-media or sculpture. I’ve also shot close to 5000 images with my cameras over that time, creating images and showing life in ways that most people (even Creatives) have not seen it. This took tens of thousands of hours of my time over those decades. If I charge a thousand dollars for a drawing that seem small in comparison to billboards, it reflects that time spent perfecting my craft. And yes, I consider myself a Master in both Drawing and Photography. I expect to be paid for my work and what it reflects of my life and time spent.

A very well dressed Man walked up to me at a gallery opening of mine in the past, and asked me how much time it took to draw an image he was looking at. I made the mistake of telling him how much. When I did, he told me I was asking “too much” for it. He then (apparently calculating that hour to do this image at Mickie D’s wages) told me what he thought it was worth. I was too stunned to tell him what I thought his opinion was worth.

To those who think that because it is on the Web or in Digital format that the work should be free, I say, go back home and let Mommie and Daddy take care of you then. Don’t waste my time/steal my work. If you have nothing to offer anyone else, why should you expect to take what someone else has to offer – for nothing?

Excerpt from "The Raceway"

From the new collection "Dreams, Desires, And Dead Ends" All Rights Reserved. 
©2012 Robert Alan Chappell -- Reproduction in part or in whole of this work constitutes property theft and will be prosecuted. 


It was a time of great change, and the Mid-West does not like change.  First there was us, the progeny of the changing nation which would later be called the Baby Boomer generation.  We been born into the seeming prosperity of the aftermath of World War II, and for the time being were one of the welcomed changes occurring in their lives.  That of course would change in just a few short years, centered around the years of '67, '68 and '69. 

John F. Kennedy and Camelot were still in full swing, and he had just announced his intention to Go to the Moon.  Viet Nam and The War At Home were only fragile nightmares for now.  The deaths of the American Ideal that were the assassinations not even in the realm of nightmares as of yet.

And last but certainly not least, were the new motorways (as they were called then), the remaining legacy of Dwight Eisenhower, as far reaching in their consequences for the coming years as the Moon Adventure would be.  The new Interstate Highway System.  Long strips of continuos blacktop spreading and linking all of the major cities in ways that the old highways — often twisty-turny in nature following the whims of the landscape — would not be.  These were supposed to be clean straight lines advancing to and expanding the horizon.  The Age of the Motorcar.

And here I was, growing up in the epitome of speed and advancing metal, Indianapolis; home to The Speedway and The 500.  Sleek shiny pods of metal screaming round and round the circular Pathway of Fate.  

It was also the time of the advent of the (also seeming) Raceway inspired interchange systems designed to re-route long distance traffic around those cities, that would come to be known shortly as Beltways.  These big loops had often ground through neighborhoods, leaving behind (for now) large gashes in the vegetation and housing.  They were at this time, in the process of being born, and like many another change at this time, the birth was not without it muddy consequences. 

that would be the later drainage system under this behemoth, were for now, ramps and tunnels for the gas-fueled dreams of youth.

We of course, the Progeny living within the growing radius of Sub-Urbia, would not find this gouging of the landscape (for now) objectionable.  No, just the opposite.  It allowed for us, living in the shadow of The Raceway, to carve the Raceway of our dreams in this man-made lunar landscape, not for screaming pods of metal, but for screaming bi-pedaled testosterone in the building.  The just placed circular (tubular) concrete conduits that would be the later drainage system under this behemoth, were for now, ramps and tunnels for the gas-fueled dreams of youth.

We didn't have a sports team of note (at that time) to root for, but we did have The Speedway.  It was, at that time, one of the few of its kind in the country, a hint of things to come.  And we used that newly graded but not yet concreted path of the future to our own advantage, speeding around on our bikes, leaping over conduit and change for a time, remaking the larger landscape to our own pathways of dreams.  I spent many an hour where my mother knew I was, going round and round.

And it was also the recent advent of The Mall.  No longer would there be an old-fashioned town center where shops would be, but the clean, gleaming concrete tower of The Mall.  The particular Mall that was close by me at that time, was a siren call to going 'further away from home' than I was 'supposed to be.'  It was the lure of my coming gypsy life, taking me far afield from anything considered home.  
My parents were not amused.  And they also did not see the traveling from city to town far afield influence of my fathers constant need to be On The Road in my further and further wanderings.  All they saw was that I was going where no child of theirs was supposed to go.  Too Far.

I was an awkward, gangly, bespectacled twelve, entering into the throes of what in my later life would be called geek love.  I was the eldest of three boys, so I didn't have an older brother to ask advice from, and I had an absent father who, when he did come home from being on the road, didn't have a lot of time for me and fatherly advice.  In other words, I was on my own.

So I spent every waking hour that I could at Our Raceway, after school and on weekends.  Racing round and round the circuit of dust and dirt, pretending that we were those Racers that were our heroes.

The only other siren call that was close by with nearly as much pull was the small one runway airport that was also within my bikes pedaling distance.  What time I didn't spend at The Raceway, was spent there amidst the Pipers and smells of spilt airplane fuel.  I stood glued to the chain link fence that separated me (for safety purposes) from the dream of speed aloft.  This one would later replace The Raceway, and it's ground based transit mundi. 

"Since" [flash fiction from "Dreams...]

From the new collection "Dreams, Desires, And Dead Ends" All Rights Reserved. 
©2012 Robert Alan Chappell -- Reproduction in part or in whole of this work constitutes property theft and will be prosecuted. 


         The sirens were bitterly wailing as they passed his office building, and he knew where they were going.  He could see the smoke drifting off into the sky in the distance, and somehow knew it was close to his home.  He also somehow knew that his wife was still there, still in bed, and had no doubt drifted off again.  But only after she had managed to light a cigarette before drifting off. 
         He was far enough away that he also knew he couldn't do anything about it.  The firemen and trucks would soon be there, their water hoses spraying the house down to no avail.  He knew he'd be getting the call within minutes from one of his neighbors informing him of the state of his house and 'was his wife still there?'         He fought the inability to handle his wife's depression.  She fought the inability to handle her life.  He would miss her once she was gone, but he had been missing her for the last fourteen years since the depression had taken over.  Since their son had not been born.  Since she had begun blaming him for the miscarriage that he had tried to tell her was of no fault of anyone's, that it just happened, that more miscarriages happened than actual births.
        Since then, she had spoken to him less and less.  Since then, he had buried himself in his job, and had long since stopped trying to suggest that they go on vacation.  Had long since stopped trying to seduce her into having sex, and had long since given up on anything other than the porn on the computer late at night.  He had long since given up on her accepting help.  He had long since wondered when this moment would come.
        The phone rang at his desk, sounding insistent, but he chose to keep on working.  He'd long since come to depend on his job as his only refuge.
        The hard truth would wait for later, some part of him decided, and he returned his focus back to work.

The Big Hum

In an article I read recently on an experience of a different kind of Sexual Attraction, the Author took on what most people think should be the Big Bang of Attraction and expressed that a recent experience of hers was more of a Big Hum. Instead of fireworks going off when 'he' walked into the room, she felt a deep hum begin inside of her. 

A friend of mine back East once told me, she used to think love was all fireworks, bright and loud and explosive. But then (at the time she was telling me this) she said, "I've rather come to think of it like fireflies, winking here and there in the summer night, not like explosions" that seem to flare and then disappear all too quickly. In other words, "The Big Hum." 

For those of us who hear it, the faint ringing in our ears to science is evidence of the physical 'ailment' of tinnitus, a condition that can be cured by B vitamins filling in a 'deficiency.' I've experienced this 'hum' for quite some time, but only after reading this article did it occur to me, that perhaps what I was hearing was the 'background noise' of Creation itself; this Hum being what used to be called The Music of the Spheres. Perhaps it is the sound of the Superstrings of Quantum Theory ("Harps of Heaven"?) that played this reality into existence once upon a time, humming the firefly light of Creation into existence.

Scientists have also concluded that the "Big Bang" was more of a Long Bang, not Creation in an instant, but building over time, eventually to what we are now. Most Wisdom Paths speak of Inspiration ("The Breath of God") being the quiet, still Voice from Within. Jesus said, "Be Still, and know that I AM with you." 

Creation may seem at times like an explosion, a coming from 'nothing' into Something, but instead for me it plays out as a quiet instant of Inspiration building towards a more full (ful-filled) Big Hum. Love builds (hopefully), from the first Spark into greater Glory, but hopefully doesn't disappear with a Bang.

Ah, the Creative Life!

In the last two months, I have finished off almost a dozen short stories, started three novellas, wrote a ten page short video script for two friends, and ordered my comedy skits into reasonable expectations of one day getting up on stage with them and becoming a Comedy Star.

In the last two months, I have also gone without a lot of the Holiday Cheer that most others in our society expect to have during the Christmas and New Years season. I have also spent most of it on friends couches and floors, filling out another dozen works of fiction known as Employment Applications, which have large gaps in the history of, due to bouts of writing and acting which, unfortunately, I cannot acknowledge in this town because it is the kiss of death in finding employment.

As soon as those sidelines come out of me, it's time for the interview to have been over two minutes prior. Never mind that I've spent much of the last two years looking for work, or hopping back and forth from here to the East Coast in search of work, the admission of Things Other Than Gainful Work is enough to sink the prospect.

So yes, I can brag of my great creative strides, while at the same time severely lacking in the basic necessities.

Ah, The Creative Life! It chose me, not I it. It is who I am, regardless of any other aspect of my life. For Better or Worse.

Hey! Doesn't that sound like a marriage?

Responsibility and Peter Pan-ism

I have been told repeatedly, that one is not an adult unless one has fathered a child. And yet, on a bus recently, I was confronted by two loud "ghetto" (that's what they call it when they take over a bus or a corner and proceed to announce to the world... whatever)  twenty somethings that the children they created (one of them two by a woman/child that he didn't want to have anything to do with but for his 'kids'). As I was getting off the bus, the loudest (the two children) said, "Havin' kids just happens to the best of us" -- as if that justified it. Funny, I've never known having children to force anyone to grow up, and many still don't.

I have also been told that Women today are 'independent' and able to support themselves and a man if they want. But they still expect the Man to  make a lot of money. One couple I know of, the wife supports the husband and has for years, and he has apparently had a number of women supporting him in the past. I have also known several other men who, while the wife/girlfriend didn't support them completely, helped them out a great deal.

I've supported myself (some years better than others) most of my life. I've done my creative pursuits most of that life, paying for the doing of them by not exactly making a lot of money. I've been married twice, and each case the 'independent' woman I married soon expected me to support them. Not conducive to having creative time.

I've searched for someone to support me the way my first friend has been supported by a number of his girlfriends and then wife, but that creative thing and the money thing always seem to get in the way. The saying goes that "behind every great man stands a great woman."

I'm still looking for that "great woman" myself -- not out of a desire to not grow up, but because if I had that kind of support, who knows where I would be today? Life is enough of a struggle as it is. Add a rich Creative Impulse to that struggle, and it becomes a decision point (usually) of: responsibility/earning a living, or creative pursuit/not earning much of a living.

Now this is not to say that I haven't had the support of a number of loving friends over the years, because I have. I just haven't had that Partner along the way who had the steady job that might have provided for both of our welfare with my Creative Pursuit paving the way.

Soon my intention is that it won't matter any more. I am intending that this is the year of Breakthrough on many levels, the year of fulfillment of the promise of the years that I have put into the Creative Pursuit.

Risk Is My Middle Name

I've been taking risks all my life.

The first risk I took was in not taking my parents fervent wishes seriously about taking my education past the two year degree that I received with the double major of Art and English to the next level. I did not really like formal education, not being very good at studying and preparing for work by deadlines (a still serious flaw of mine if you will). That did not stop me from studying till this very day, but I don't like to do anything formally, much less the gathering of knowledge.

I told them at the time (I was sure) that I could starve just as easily (being an artist) on a two year degree as much as a four or six-year set of degrees. My next youngest brother has three degrees — none of which he seems to be using in his current job (well, maybe parts of his MBA). I don't even remember what degree my sister got, and my youngest brother inherited even less of an aptitude for formalized education than I did.

The second risk that I took was baring more than my soul for art classes by being an art model. Yes, of the nude variety. It helped to pay the rent, and out of modeling for one class at a nearby community college not of my childhood county (which I would never have gone to for studying), I learned the Old Masters technique known as Egg Tempura Crosshatch. This method was from the Middle Ages, and involved mixing pigment with egg yolk.

It started me on a medium that, although I didn't keep up for too many years (it's a tedious application of painting, requiring the buildup of many hundreds or thousands of layers, stroke by laborious stroke) led me into the derivative style of drawing using the same technique but with colored pencils that I have used till this very day, (When I have the time to draw that is. I have long since tired of trying to earn a living at it, but hope to pick that business up again when my money is coming in. More later.)

If I hadn't taken that 'risk' (baring all), I wouldn't have been exposed to that technique and my art would have been the less focused for it.

The third risk that I undertook was when I was twenty-four (and this was the most major risk that I've taken in my life). I decided to try my hand at the then current mode of travel accessed by sticking my thumb out on the side of a highway and accepting the graciousness of random strangers. I learned many things at the risk of this, and thereafter called myself a roads scholar. I had many experiences that I would not have had otherwise.

Out of the experiences I had On The Road, I've written two screenplays, one of which is quickly becoming my second finished novel. I had experiences that both broadened my life, and in some cases felt like it was also going to be the end of it as well. But that obviously didn't happen.

I have also taken the risk of my life in driving cab for a living (much more lucrative on the East Coast than here), as well as having moved all the way to Los Angeles (for the second time) to try to make my mark in both acting and screenwriting.  Hope springs eternal; rent due arrives each month.

I have in the last two years also been living close to the edge, spending a lot of it couch surfing (sleeping on a variety of friends couches), and also having the most productive two years of my life at the risk of writing (large amounts of time in solitary confinement with just me and my computer). Unless you're writing solely short stories for your livelihood, writing scripts (I've finished six and written on portions of twenty-two others), or writing as a journalist, writing is not a short term solution to riches and happiness. If I could write a horror movie script that had all the elements I abhor in movies, I might have made those thousands of dollars.

Now I am taking the risk of converting those finished scripts into novel form. The longer form not only takes much more time than a script, but may be equally unsold at the end of it all.

Recently, I took another risk. I enrolled in, and attended, a weekend seminar in real estate investment. I spent (in monthly installments I am still paying off) what for me was a huge sum of money, with the hopes and dreams of making a living doing something that all of my friends and family wished me a very hesitant "good luck" in (to which my business partners and myself are still hoping to make our first sale in).

Life is full off risks. You can think that you're not taking risks, but every day you step outside the door to your dwelling, you never know where that day will take you. It might just be shopping, or then again it might be to the end of your life (as happened for five people yesterday in Arizona). You never know. "One never knows the hour or the day" that one is going to be called from this life. But everyone is always risking; some great risks, and others everyday risks. Simply by crossing the street these days you can be risking taking your life in somebody else's hands. 

With Great Risks, come Great Rewards. At least I'm hoping so.

Creativity and Other Errant Gestures

I am working on novelizing one of my screenplays (I suppose the correct way of putting it is "adapting" one of my screenplays -- although the process usually goes the other direction. At least I was working on the novel.

In the last week though, I have started and finished two short stories and started and gotten several (to six) pages into several more. I am not experiencing writers block, just at this time, novel block.

And when I tell someone about this, they ask, "Why don't you just finish the novel?" -- as if that were an easy task I could accomplish this weekend, if I would only stick with it. I then have to explain the writing process, and how creativity works for me (it's not a start/finish/stop process).

When I am stuck on a longer piece, it is sometimes easier to do a short piece. Feels less frustrating that way for some reason. If I try to continue to slug it out with the novel, it only gets frustrating, especially since the novel is 'already finished' if you will -- the basic plot is down and just needs to be 'filled out' 'some.' Usually a lot 'some.' 

Hence, the short story.

Now what I really need to finish are several articles. But that requires research. Oy! Now that's 'work.'