Getting away from death now.

Ok, I've been really making headlines with this metaphorical death talk for a couple of weeks now. And though it is tempting to go with what is popular, the subject is -- pardon me -- sort of for the dead. I personally feel alive!

When I first came to Los Angeles to learn the ways of the "Big Time", I had come straight of out of some forest fantasy of rural Montana. I had watched almost no TV growing up, and instead of getting mixed up with trouble and girls in High School, I found a friend and set an athletic goal for ourselves, which we achieved. I was in another world, and I did not get the same education.

But upon graduation, I knew I was lacking and so I definitely wanted to "get it". So, off to the city.

How can I say this and fully communicate just how BIG the "Big Time" happened on my naive ass? I got tooled? Naw, ass was involved, but I think I licked it -- I made it straight into a lucrative career, made lots of friends, got credits on classic movies like South Park and Kung Pow. I loved a woman, and she stuck it out with me through the whole deal. It was incredible, man!

Even so, almost 30 now, and for all intents and purposes, having made a complete loop of the monopoly board, I find myself standing again right in the beginning. Right at "Go".

So I have been reflecting intensely on my journey and, I guess you would say, making some preparations based on prior experience for what I anticipate is coming up soon.

This naturally is not all mental. It is running in tandem with my daily experience.

So my current realization is that, when I was younger, I really really was too over-whelmed with the "new-ness" of the city and my innocent love people to recognize my own light.

Yes.

And so, not realizing my own worth, I gave it away freely, even to my own demise. If you ask anybody who knew me, they would admit some variation of that truth.

I don't think that was a bad way to be. Actually, I even believe it is/was sort of inspirational -- afterall, I am still here, no worse for the wear, and what have I lost? And what really did they gain off of me?

. . .

Only my light, but the more I pay attention and value my inner light, the more that I realize nothing, not even the respect of a loved one, is more valuable than the single star which guides the wiseman. It is all that I am!

Still, I want to give it freely, but this is my point: These years have left me feeling that it is not worth giving to someone who will not honor and respect it. Curiously, I have found that those who know how to pay heed to the value of another have first, also, discovered the value of themselves. And so exchanges with such people are really quite amazing, as each person has so much to freely give the other.