"You are a true immortal. You stay sane by hanging out with the descendants of friends that are long dead. Today, one said a very familiar phrase you haven't heard in a long time."
I am a true immortal. I stay sane by hanging out with the descendants of friends that are long dead. Today, one said a very familiar phrase you haven't heard in a long time, “Sumus quid sumus.” We are what we are. That’s what my old friend John used to say. John was very successful and worked very hard to accumulate money. He found love and success, founded a huge family and created institutions that live on today. I founded nothing, and have no family. They call me the great malingerer. Or lazy. I never really saw the point in doing something because I had forever to learn or earn or build or do. I found it enough to just be. But being becomes old, but I got into a habit of not doing things.
Then John the twentieth or something like that said, “we are what we are.” And I decided to activate. I was going to earn, then learn, then build. I looked out at the business world and saw that more than our needs were being met. So I got into luxury items. That’s not an easy game to get into. First I got into diamonds. Turns out they’re pretty common but controlling how many are available inflated the price. So to raise the price, I bought out a bunch of businesses and dissolves them. As my trove of diamonds rose in value, I sold high and collected a sum that could sustain me and grow in perpetuity. I would now turn to study.
I followed my interests in a zig zag fashion. I read Shakespeare and Darwin. I read the Greeks, and literature that just came out. I studied the various sciences, social sciences, math. I went to England and studied maths and saw some Shakespeare. I studied economics and reinvested my money. I read poetry for a year and wrote a few books myself, of poems and on Mary Oliver, Allen Ginsberg and the early American Buddhists of poetry.
I spent a year on butterflies, a year on tulips in the Netherlands, and a year excavating archaeology sites in India. I spent a year in a monastery meditating. I say “a year” but sometimes it was 8 months and sometimes it was 15 months. Rounding onto my second year of meditation I realized I wanted to build a monastery in my hometown of Madison Wisconsin.
I went back there. When I was growing up the city was only 100,000 people. Now it was a sprawling metropolis that almost extended to Milwaukee in the east, La Crosse in the west, Janesville in the South and Dells in the north. It was a sprawling metropolis with bike lanes and green spaces. The university and the state capital were at the heart of it, on the isthmus between the two lakes.
I decided to build the monastery on the west bluff of Devil’s Lake. It took me years and years of political corruption to acquire the land since it was a state park. No worries, I had time. Meanwhile I searched the earth for the greatest architects. I decided to go with someone who wanted to build a monastery based on Frank Lloyd Wright because he was from Wisconsin. It seemed like a cliche, but when I saw the drawings I knew it had the winning design.
The building would have a minimalist presence on the western bluff and I took ads out in all the newspapers in Wisconsin to tell the people of my plans and to hold a town hall meeting. Many people were upset, and expressed their feelings. Some people liked it. Some were upset it wasn’t a Christian monastery. I decided to include a non-denominational guest house for visitors of all faiths. I found that to be a great improvement. The more and more I read spiritual writing the more and more I saw how they all converged because that is what I wanted to see.
I am a true immortal. I stay sane by hanging out with the descendants of friends that are long dead. Today, one said a very familiar phrase you haven't heard in a long time, “Sumus quid sumus.” We are what we are. That’s what my old friend John used to say. John was very successful and worked very hard to accumulate money. He found love and success, founded a huge family and created institutions that live on today. I founded nothing, and have no family. They call me the great malingerer. Or lazy. I never really saw the point in doing something because I had forever to learn or earn or build or do. I found it enough to just be. But being becomes old, but I got into a habit of not doing things.
Then John the twentieth or something like that said, “we are what we are.” And I decided to activate. I was going to earn, then learn, then build. I looked out at the business world and saw that more than our needs were being met. So I got into luxury items. That’s not an easy game to get into. First I got into diamonds. Turns out they’re pretty common but controlling how many are available inflated the price. So to raise the price, I bought out a bunch of businesses and dissolves them. As my trove of diamonds rose in value, I sold high and collected a sum that could sustain me and grow in perpetuity. I would now turn to study.
I followed my interests in a zig zag fashion. I read Shakespeare and Darwin. I read the Greeks, and literature that just came out. I studied the various sciences, social sciences, math. I went to England and studied maths and saw some Shakespeare. I studied economics and reinvested my money. I read poetry for a year and wrote a few books myself, of poems and on Mary Oliver, Allen Ginsberg and the early American Buddhists of poetry.
I spent a year on butterflies, a year on tulips in the Netherlands, and a year excavating archaeology sites in India. I spent a year in a monastery meditating. I say “a year” but sometimes it was 8 months and sometimes it was 15 months. Rounding onto my second year of meditation I realized I wanted to build a monastery in my hometown of Madison Wisconsin.
I went back there. When I was growing up the city was only 100,000 people. Now it was a sprawling metropolis that almost extended to Milwaukee in the east, La Crosse in the west, Janesville in the South and Dells in the north. It was a sprawling metropolis with bike lanes and green spaces. The university and the state capital were at the heart of it, on the isthmus between the two lakes.
I decided to build the monastery on the west bluff of Devil’s Lake. It took me years and years of political corruption to acquire the land since it was a state park. No worries, I had time. Meanwhile I searched the earth for the greatest architects. I decided to go with someone who wanted to build a monastery based on Frank Lloyd Wright because he was from Wisconsin. It seemed like a cliche, but when I saw the drawings I knew it had the winning design.
The building would have a minimalist presence on the western bluff and I took ads out in all the newspapers in Wisconsin to tell the people of my plans and to hold a town hall meeting. Many people were upset, and expressed their feelings. Some people liked it. Some were upset it wasn’t a Christian monastery. I decided to include a non-denominational guest house for visitors of all faiths. I found that to be a great improvement. The more and more I read spiritual writing the more and more I saw how they all converged because that is what I wanted to see.
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