Holy shit, this is really happening.

If you would like to know what it takes to manifest your dream, it takes decades of optimistic thrusting at the world, decades of diligent practice of your skills, having every notion you’ve ever had be perverted by everyone, and then shat upon officially as law, the dissolution of your friendships, years of depression, years of absolute rage, the desperate need to enact revenge on all who have wronged you–and then your better angels to remind you that the best way to get back at those who drive you into the gutter is to succeed at all that is best in you, which is what these naysayers were offended by in the first place. If you can maintain this, and make something worthwhile out of it (and I know at times I really walked the edge of palatability), you may, get the support you need to manifest your dreams.

You, too, can have a shack in the woods.

Nothing great is ever fun, or even reasonable while it’s happening, but holy fuck. Then there you are.

I am leaving here August 14th. I can get moved down there, with a ride and a second set of hands to help put up the shed, for $500.

I have found a Big Berkey water filter for $200 locally, normally sold for $350ish. Other odds and ends as well, that will come in handy: wheel barrow, buckets, barrels.

I am looking for 5 people, who will ensure my safe arrival at my new land with a $250 Bone investment before the 14th.

Bones are store credit at SmutMag. $1 = 1Bone. They can be used on commissions, hand crafted perfume, theatre tickets or zine sponsorships for your business.

And, as a thank you for giving now when I need it most, you’ll receive a thank you card, tickets to “Process: A Digital Cabaret,” our “Process: A Digital Cabaret” mug, and an Artsy Fartsy tee shirt.

First there was the land. Then there was the walls. And now the final pieces: Getting there. Making it liveable.

Of course, you can also invest any amount, and your Bones still stack up as credit. And truly: every bit counts, especially when it’s this close.

This could have been a truly tragic situation. Truly. I can’t believe that we’ve been able to get as far as we’ve gotten on this–that at the very least, I have a place that is mine. I have a whole new hope that all is not lost –that there are still paths that can be taken that don’t threaten our humanity–that peace and freedom and art are possible. That home is possible.

But perhaps most importantly, I’ve seen the absolute importance of staying true to yourself– how all ruination is a deterioration of nature–yours, your environment–a deterioration of what is natural. When the environment becomes unnatural, the organizations corrupt, the self blind to the self, this is when we are ruled by rage and chaos and confusion.

The environment and the organization may be beyond our scope–maybe not. But you are not beyond your own scope. And you are the same as your environment–thrive for the same reasons, die for the same reasons, made of the same stuff. We are always bickering “Do what’s good for the group, or good for the self?” These are the same fucking thing from different perspectives. To do what is best for yourself–to do that truly– is rarely convenient. It is extremely difficult to do right by yourself. And when you do, it’s what’s best for the group.

I mean things that should be simple. Getting enough sleep is best for the group. Having a good friendship. Getting enough to eat is what is best for the group. Having a place of your own to be who you are is what is best for the group. Sacrificing what is best in you is never good for the group.

But tyrants and bullies and people who do not feel secure in their natural capacity for greatness will always try to convince you that you are not sacrificing enough of yourself to be good for the community.

They do this because sacrifice is part of being good to yourself, and good to the community. They play on that natural inclination, and on your fear of being alone, in order to control you.

But I tell you, you must never sacrifice yourself –your skills, your history, your truth, your calling, your greatness, your knowledge, your wisdom, your soul, for money. Your time, your labor, your things, your by-product –put a dignified price on it and charge for it.

But your bosses do not own you. Your landlords do not own you. The government does not own you–they are only meant to exist when they are worth your while. But there is no amount of money that can make up for the erasure of soul, the erasure of self, which is the erasure of community–for a community must contend with all, or is a prison. When the soul of the individual, and so the soul of the group, and so, the soul of the environment itself is corrupted, all is confusion, all is permissable, because all is baffling.

In such an environment, if sanity will break through, it will come from your own instinct.

A lot of people are personally invested in many, many lies and corruptions. Tangentially, and directly. To some degree, it is everyone of us. My point is not to point and say “These bastards are to blame for the state of the world!” My point is that this is why it is difficult to make change. When a whole world is pinned together by lies, putting things plain, and honest and simple reads as a threat. Because it is. It threatens everyone’s entrenched hopes and dreams and day to day lives, to point out that rubbing your leftover breakfast food on your face will have better results than any product they can buy. Or that sleeping until you wake up will give you better health than a high paying job. That everything you are told to do by advertisers, if you want to have a meaningful, good, responsible life, actually destroys all that is good in you and makes democracy untenable.

It is quite literal: they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

And at the moment I was gonna be out on the street, just as the WRETCHED SALESMEN who shoved us here to this existential breaking point announced he would be putting the homeless in camps, I have found one, tiny, untouched piece of paradise to save me. And fuck, just fuck, just fuck. I only know it’s real because it’s going to be so hard. At first.

But in time, if all goes according to what I have seen and know, I will be fed, and sheltered, and have water and a trade, and a community, and responsibility, and the things that make an independent and free life. And the more of us who find this, a way to have access to what is natural to them, a space to rest and be free to be themselves, to be free to fail and try again, the closer to democracy. The better for the group.

When you are barred from what is natural, there is no such thing as a safety net: everything is begging. Everyone is begging. You are dependent on the people controlling your environment. Their only goal is to keep you controlled.

Nature is crueler, and can therefore afford to be kind: it WILL take your life in the end. The debt has already been paid–it is only a matter of time. And so, knowing that, you are free to enjoy what you have access to.

Access is what gets us. Because access is what is held up as the carrot by advertisers–is held at bay. Access to what nature has to offer: a good night’s sleep, a purified environment, impressive beauty, adrenaline rushes and accomplishments, and muscles and farm fresh food. That is what they tell you you aren’t good enough for. No matter how good you are.

My poor mother is scared to death for me. And I’m scared, too. But I am following my gut. And I am reminding myself that nobody has more authority on how to wake up every day than I do. I am radically trusting myself.

I want to thank everyone who has gotten Bones or is planning to get them, for allowing me to follow my gut. To not compromise myself. Nothing is free. There is always compromise, always an amount to be paid. Life and the arts will always need funding, one way or another. But together we’re going to try and do this in a better way than how arts funding has been done in the past. When we can make the arts self sustaining, then we can make life self sustaining, and have true leverage, so we are not put over a barrel again by tyrants. We all need a stake in this country, a piece we are responsible for, a piece we can defend and call home.

$1250 and I can make a good enough start to relax a little. I’ll get down there before I’m physically thrown out of this apartment. I will have help getting my shed built, which is really very necessary. I will have drinkable water.

Now is the time to get your Bones.

(You are incredible)