Are we really “living the dream” or just ignoring the nightmare?

Do extreme sports and adventure travel reconnect us with reality or do they actually distract us from life’s deeper meanings?

Time keeps rolling on.  It’s April 2014, and I am alive.

I find myself behind the wheel of a Jeep Comanche almost as old as I am.  I am 33.

Maestra the Mexican mutt rides shotgun as we ascend Wyoming’s infamous Teton Pass in a blinding blizzard.

With the wind whipping like it is, visibility varies from poor to pea soup: at times I can’t see past my own hood.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.  Such is life.

Fortunately I can see a big yellow WYDOT plow as it grinds past in the downhill lane.  Unfortunately, a powerful gust of wind catches the plow’s snowy spray, creating a cloud which engulfs my ascending truck and the line of cars following the plow down into Wilson.

Visibility drops to zero.

I take my foot off the gas and visualize hugging the right shoulder as headlights materialize and whiz past just to my left.

5 seconds.  10 seconds.  Mere moments.  An eternity.

Finally the cloud breaks and vision returns, but not before my internal monologue chimes in with the obvious:

“This is a stupid and senseless situation.  I’m driving a dangerous road in a whiteout so I can go solo storm skiing with my dog (again).  Is it really worth the risk (again)?”

It’s not worth it, but turning around here is impossible.  Also, if I don’t hit the gas right now I’ll probably get rear ended in this whiteout.

I drop down to first and gun it, pop into second, and am ascending the steep, snowy grade at a respectable 25 mph when a pair of headlights rapidly approaches from behind.

It’s one of those new Ford pickups with a grill that removes all doubt.  They call it a “Raptor F-150” but to me it looks more like a “Fist Fuck 666”: all black, heavy tint, jacked up, knobbed out, and spending very little time on my ass before proceeding up my ass.  Typical behavior.

My reaction to this situation is automatic: I keep my foot on the gas but gently tap the brakes three times, illuminating his grill with red light signalling, “Hey buddy, I can go even slower than this.   Don’t you realize that we’re in the middle of a horrible blizzard?!”

His reaction — for the driver of this heavily-tinted monster cock is obviously a man of the puny penile persuasion — is as predictable as it is pathetic: he pops me twice with his brights and floors it, swerving across the solid center lines and back, narrowly missing both my bumpers and an oncoming minivan full of Mexicans.

The journey is the destination, but road rage can end all abruptly.

***

I get a look at the truck as it speeds off into the snowstorm: Utah plates.  NRA sticker.  Marines sticker.  Craft International sticker.

For those that don’t know, Craft International is a group of contract killers that trains others in the “art” of Black Ops.  Their slogan? “Despite what your momma told you… Violence does solve problems.”

Craft International was founded by US Navy Sniper Chris Kyle.  Kyle claimed to have killed 255 people and racked up 160 confirmed kills while taking part in the illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq.  Kyle’s killings got him nicknamed “The Devil of Ramadi” among terrorized Iraqi locals who put an $80,000 bounty on his head.

Chris Kyle was certainly a brave man but he killed in a cowardly manner: by sniping the unsuspecting.  Kyle died in similar fashion when a fellow veteran potshot him at a Texas rifle range in 2013.

Despite its founder’s death, Craft carries on its misguided,  Malthusian mission of “solving problems with violence” for money.

Most infamously, private “security” contractors wearing Craft International hats were photographed playing a suspicious role just before bombs went off at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

All theories, conspiracies,   and subliminal semantic slurs aside, history proves governments’ use of false flag attacks throughout ancient and recent human history.  Reality: accept it.

Admitted false flag events were used to propel the United States into the Spanish-American and Vietnam Wars.  Hitler’s Reichstag Fire was a false flag attack.  The Boston Bombing was a false flag event.  So was the Sandy Hook Shooting.  So was 9/11.   So it goes.

The journey is the destination until institutionalized deception and violence drastically alters or abruptly ends your trip through life.

What do False Flag attacks have to do with philosophizing about journeys being destinations?  All Americans had our journeys’ trajectories dramatically altered by false flag events like 9/11.  Our new destination?  Techno-fascism by way of the Totalitarian tip-toe.

The rest of the world now knows that 9/11 was an inside job, and more Americans wake up to that reality every day.  Let’s hope humanity’s growing awareness of recent history will decrease governments’ reliance on false flag events in the future.

Living a lie sucks.  I won’t do it, and I hope you feel the same way.

***

As the Ford Fist Fuck 666 disappears into the blowing snow, additional thoughts brought on by our narrow miss begin to flow.

When he’s not terrorizing motorists the Ford’s driver apparently terrorizes America’s “enemies” professionally.   Then again, maybe he just bought a stupid sticker online.

Either way he obviously identifies with the black ops contract killer lifestyle, and why wouldn’t he?

The work is exciting and the pay is high enough that — unlike most Americans — private mercenaries can afford time off between jobs.  Personal safety is obviously a concern but job security is guaranteed in an era of endless war: America’s strategy of fighting terror with terror assures ample opportunities for state-sponsored terrorists.

Back in Minnesota Catholic Schools my teachers called endless war a “Spiral of Violence” and portrayed it as an unequivocally bad thing.  Ironically, organized religion is often blamed for wars waged by secular governments, funded by secular banks, conducted by secular corporations, promoted by secular media, and fought by young fools.

Politricksters pretend that they’re ridding the world of religious extremism, but we’re really warring for power, profit, and petroleum.

Want deeper irony?  The world’s largest and fastest growing religion is actually Consumer Capitalism.  Look around you and see that this is true: faith in worthless paper currency now trumps faith in God.

If you find this statement hard to believe, here’s a simple experiment you can try for yourself.  Get a box of spiritual pamphlets and a box of paper currency.  Climb a tall structure in a densely populated area, and dump both boxes down onto humanity simultaneously.

Observe.  Reflect.

The worship of money, my friends, is the essence of the “New Secular Order”, aka the “NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM” promoted on the back of the dollar bill.  Every US Dollar also declares “IN GOD WE TRUST”.  What most people don’t realize is that money is actually the “god” we’re required to worship.

Money is a false god, and the love of false gods is the root of all evil.

Cash is king, and killing for the king is cool.  Even “unchained” modern movie heroes like Django are still slaves to money.  Django’s contract killings are only acceptable — and profitable — because the government says so.  Propaganda 101, son.

Because endless war is profitable, mercenaries and contract killers have been re-branded “private security consultants” and their work is continually glorified by the mainstream media.  Politicians and corporations actively “support our troops” in their quest to  “Defend Freedom”, “Spread Democracy”, and “Fight Terrorism”.  In reality they’re defending the status quo, spreading consumer capitalism, and terrorizing anyone who stands in their way.

Nothing is more terrifying than drones.  Well, maybe weather war is.

Chemtrails cause climate change.  Geoengineering is genocide.  Weather weapons so threatened freedom by the mid-1970s that they were banned by the UN’s ENMOD Treaty in 1978.  The UN also banned torture but that doesn’t stop “enhanced interrogation”.

The smart kids are indoctrinated with strategy games where they must exploit resources, build armies, and destroy enemies.  The dumb kids are indoctrinated with first person murder fantasies like Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Sniper.

These first person shooter games neglect to mention that respawn rates are slower in real life, and that killing in pursuit of a false god named money can’t possibly go over well in the afterlife, regardless of what really happens when we die.

You can’t be right with God if you worship money and kill to get it.

The journey is the destination unless you get sniped, droned, or HAARPed into oblivion.  Most folks in the rear with the gear (and continuously taking it in the rear) are too broke to afford much time off for travelling so the journey isn’t too exciting.  But hey…

Ironically, cash is just paper and currency is just made up numbers manipulated with computers.  It doesn’t have to be this way.

Here’s an idea: let’s stop worshiping toilet paper.

***

As I round a corner visibility improves in the wind shadow of Mount Glory.  I stop and pick up a few hitchhikers below Glory Bowl.    As we near the top of the pass the road is so slick and the headwind so strong that even in 4WD with four skiers and 160 pounds of sand in back my tires slip sporadically.

Visibility fails again and at times it feels like we’re going backwards.  A sense of dread and apprehension fills my soul.  What the hell am I doing here?

Surprisingly the parking lane atop the pass is totally full and several cars are waiting to park, but karma pays off: I score the snowy spot my new friends (the hitchhikers) are vacating.

Despite the raging storm dozens of people are out skiing and small groups mill around cheerfully in the parking lot.  I’m relieved to be parked because I always feel safer in avalanche terrain than I ever do on the road.

I get my gear on, let the dog loose, and stroll the last few feet to the summit of the pass.  I run into old friends, shoot the bull a bit, witness a no-harm-done fender bender, and notice a little pocket of blue sky rolling in from the West: sucker holes incoming.  Improved visibility.  Awesome.

The journey is the destination, so being able to see where you’re at and where you’re going is important.  God grant me clear skies and the vision to see through them.

***

The Glory bootpack is totally blown over in spots but I know this path well.  My heart quickens.  My lungs open.  My quads burn.  The effort feels good.  I’m livelying up myself in the tradition of Robert Nesta Marley.

Better thoughts start flowing.

What a weird world we live in.  We gotta love it and laugh at it.  We have to laugh at ourselves too.  That’s what keeps us sane and on the right path, especially when the going gets tough or the road gets foggy.

When old friends ask what I’m up to the conversation goes…

Me: Same shit, different decade. Skiing, surfing, sailing, climbing, thinking, writing, loving, lusting, shuffling addictions, striving, sticking it to the man, spiritually evolving, raising awareness, and working part time jobs because we’re all slaves to worthless paper.

Them: So you’re still out in the hills Living The Dream, huh?!

Sometimes their words are tainted with jealousy, but more often they are tinged with pity, curiosity, and/or concern.

Regardless of individuals’ emotions, the collective consciousness agrees that temporarily tuning out the “real world”, casting aside responsibilities, and intentionally putting oneself in excitingly dangerous situations is somehow synonymous with “Living The Dream”.

I have apparently tuned out a lot of bullshit over the course of the last decade.  Hopefully this is a good thing.

Over the last several decades adventure travel and extreme sports  (ATES) has become a big business — not fossil fuel, financial fraud, political prison, military industrial, or medical mafia big — but big enough to shift society in similar ways.  The adventurous outdoorsy industry gets bigger every day too.

All advertising plays on our desires, and ATES has redefined “The Dream” for hundreds of millions of humans worldwide.

The Dream used to involve marriage, mortgage, career, kids, and conspicuous consumption.  Now many of us have tired of conventional consumerism but gladly spend thousands of dollars on “gear” and consume obscene amounts of fossil fuels searching for a life of endless adventure.

Greedily consuming experiences is still consumption.

Conventional vacationing is 2nd only to war as far as wasteful, worthlessness human activities go.  True travel doesn’t involve flight or fossil fuels, and you won’t ever find yourself through a mere two weeks paid vacation annually.

The journey is the destination, so what’s the fucking rush.  If you really want to go, you must go slow.  Right?

***

Our great great great grandparents were sold the philosophy of Manifest Destiny.

Our great great grandparents bought into Boom Bust Capitalism.

Our great grandparents were handed The New Deal.

Our grandparents were promised The American Dream.

Our parents got sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  They were told that greed is good.  They were told that endless wars of aggression were being fought for noble purposes.  They got fake environmentalism.  They traded gold money for paper currency.  They traded their lives for paper.  They sold our future for paper.  Fortunately, it’s all just paper.  It’s just a game.  The rules can change.  The rules will change.

Our generation has been sold the idea that meaningless adventures are the meaning of life.  We’ve been indoctrinated with a “fuck it, huck it” philosophy that only enriches the medical mafia, the vacation travel industry, and the corporations selling shiny toys to short-sighted manboys.

Though the world seems totally fucked we’ve actually got it all in the palm of our hands, and the headwind whipping our faces would be at our backs if we all just turned around and went another way.

***

Every so often life throws you a curve-ball and sometimes several all at once.  It happens when you least expect it, but you asked for it.

Wild pitches can be dodged, but — in my experience — careening cosmic cannonballs become educational only after connecting forcefully to the forehead, throat, heart, gut, groin, and/or butthole.

Wise-asses wiser than my ass say the crown chakra can be used to deflect such things, but that level of awareness is over my head. 😛

This article could go on forever, but it’s time to move on.  It may seem rambling and pointless to some, but philosophizing is like that.  If reading this got you thinking about anything at all, I have succeeded.

We are successful only if our ideas are true and our actions humane.

Signing off with words from the ancients.  One Love.  Peace.