Prophetic Powers of Pretending

Last night I worked a couple of hours in a crazy good Italian pizzeria before I rode my bicycle over to Hamilton in search of a few friends who had caught up for dumplings and beers. Three remained, and when I arrived, I saddled on over to the bar and lay my hands on a corona before meeting them outside. We played pool, I tested my Disc Jockey skills at the dollar-per-tune Jukebox (Paaass the dutchie to the left hand siiide) and we bought rounds and rounds of beers. We made the decision (albeit a drunken one) to stay until 12 am, which marked the beginning of Poppy's birthday. 

During the time at which we sat outside at the table in an empty beer garden, we talked and laughed and got into some deep conversations. One thing that we kept coming back to is the idea of being honest with yourself, and all things flow naturally and seemingly effortlessly from that. Whether it be relationships with parents, partners, peers. When you decide "I need to do this for me", you are, in that moment, deciding something well worthwhile. 

And it isn't selfish. When we do things for others, or what they're expecting of us, it is inherently selfish, because it become a material obsession with how we are perceived by others, reflecting on ourselves. It is consuming and unnecessary. We needn't pretend that things are a certain way or have to be and can only be a certain way, or we risk the reality of those things becoming real.

So today, after I bought Poppy a Sailor Jerry's and a packet of Beef Jerky from the bar for her birthday and we called it a night, Poppy heading back to her house down the street and the rest of us riding back home into town, I walked down to Good Brother coffee shop and I sat there with the mist and salty air of the ocean bursting quietly through the city, past the window at which I sat. I messaged Poppy wishing her a happy birthday and hoping she wasn't filthily hungover (spoiler: she was). I then said to her that the conversations we had the evening prior were a culmination of exactly the way I have felt recently: that being honest in yourself allows you to find freedom - and in doing that recently, I have become very happy recently. And I hope others look first to happiness and to a sense of fulfilment rather than monetary, material or perceived gain. It has to be a deep, inner honesty that gets you past all the "necessities", but once you find it - oh boy !

Time and Space is where you chase things you pretend you don't have - love, friends, and abundance - while worrying about things you pretend you do have - problems, challenges, and issues. Until one day, you happen to notice the prophetic powers of pretending. - Mike Dooley