The Call

Love is calling you.

When that guy cut you off in traffic.

When the old woman drops her change.

When people march in the street for freedom.

Love is calling you.

Over there, the child in the classroom who never smiles.

Over there, the woman buying groceries doesn’t have enough money.

Over there, a people are fighting against a regime that seeks to own them.

Love is calling you.

Can you see the girl with tears in her eyes?

Can you see the boy with old shoes?

Can you see the immigrant fleeing their home for the unknown?

Love is calling you.

Every day, the only voice we hear is our own.

We cut out the noise.

We cut out the distractions.

We take, we consume the thing that will make us numb.

I got mine.

Go get yours.

Bluntly… even the king of beasts doesn’t think that way.

Even the lion shares its food.

But we humans don’t.

Our supposed higher ability to reason has cut out the middleman.

Love.

Love is not even on the table for more than half the human race.

Half of us only think of love on a birthday card.

The card we received.

When was the last time you actually sent a card and said I love you?

When was the last time you gave flowers for no reason other than love?

When was the last time you heard the voice of love?

I’m here to remind the human race that it has a significant problem with love.

Humanity loves to hate.

If humanity didn’t love hate, the world wouldn’t be in the dark hole it finds itself in.

Love will lift.

Love will lift not only others but you as well.

Humanity has never truly trusted love yet.

Humanity trusts its own monster, which it created, called selfishness.

In the dark corners, it finds comfort in what the monster of selfishness feeds.

Selfishness makes us blind, deaf, and mute in the face of need.

Yes, this is a needy world.

It’s a needy universe.

Better get used to it, human beings.

If we ever want to make the world better, the monster of selfishness has to be reckoned with.

Until then…

Until then, you will never hear the voice of love call you.

Can you hear it?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Strange Things

When you carry the light of truth…

The darkness will come to put it out.

The darkness is drawn to the light.

But doesn’t like it.

Doesn’t accept it.

When you carry the light of truth…

You are a target.

You are the focus of forces that will attack you.

Humanity fears truth.

When you carry the light of truth…

You are a reminder of responsibility.

Responsibility to the lost, the broken, the sick, the ignorant, to those in want.

You are responsible for what you do.

What you represent.

How you are remembered.

When you carry the light of truth…

The forces of hate will growl at you.

They’ll take a bite and see if you will run.

But like an eight-year-old running through a crowd, hate losses focus.

Hate hates everything, which is why it spins and bites even at its own tale.

And yes, I mean ‘tale’, hate will destroy its own story if it conflicts or interferes with getting what it wants.

Every day, no matter the weather, the temperature, what has happened in my life, or the world, I take a walk.

My adult son joins me, and we traverse this corner of Burbank and Toluca Lake in a mile and a half circle.

I’ve come up with a theory, which is as good as any, as to why strange things happen to me on these journeys.

You may or may not know that I died back in 1977.

I’m not supposed to be here; I’m supposed to be dead.

Ever since then, the world has prevented me from fulfilling my dreams.

From telling you what’s on my heart.

It’s thrown every conceivable roadblock at me.

It’s stopped me from working for Disney by eliminating 2D animation.

It stopped me from being a marine artist by destroying the fine art print world.

It stopped me from being a film and TV concept artist due to one industry strike after another.

It stopped me from being a TV executive producer due to intellectual property theft.

I could go on and on.

The dark forces of the world, power, greed, and indifference, have stopped me at every endeavor.

Yet I still hold my light up.

On my walks, strange things happen to me.

Strangers stop me and start talking to me.

They tell me their life stories.

The homeless stop me and compliment me, not knowing me, saying I’m doing good work.

Dogs run up to me like I’m their lost friend.

Cars constantly try to run me down, even on the sidewalks.

Branches fall out of trees, and I have to jump out of the way.

Solicitors,  no matter what they are hawking, approach me and beat me with false platitudes.

Can’t say this enough, cars keep coming at me even if I’m standing on the sidewalk.

Maybe it’s just an LA thing.

There are just too many things thrown at me to list.

However, I’ve come to believe that the few words of truth I have, drop hate be hope, attracts the stranger things of this world.

It’s like dark energy; everything in the universe has a trail, a length of chain it drags behind itself, composed of dark matter.

From galaxies to human beings, everyone drags a chain of dark energy

When you carry the light of truth, I imagine you snag the dark energy of the world and pull it along behind yourself.

These things and worse can happen to you, too.

When you carry the light of truth.

Join me.

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

Power

Hate empowers only the one.

Love empowers everyone.

I’m here to tell you the fight is real.

It’s been going on for a long time and will continue on and on and on.

The fact is, we are born not caring about anyone else other than ourselves.

Kindness beyond ourselves has to be taught.

Compassion has to be practiced.

Some of us will pick up the skill and run with it.

Just like those who have natural inborn talents for running, math, art, and the gift of gab.

However, the vast majority will never know the joy of giving beyond self-gratification.

Very few have the natural talent to express love.

Face it, the human race likes sitting on the couch doing nothing.

Even if their house is on fire, they’ll let the neighbors call the fire department because…

Because they can’t be bothered with anything that interferes with their orgasm.

The majority of humanity is just that way.

Reality.

Self-centered, purposefully ignorant, non-helpful, non-volunteering, non-social beings.

The only thing that will motivate them to get ‘involved’ is what Carl Sagan said in his show Cosmos concerning ‘blockbusters’.

During WWII, the Germans dropped bombs on London, nicknamed by the English as ‘blockbusters’.

Bombs dropped from planes that would destroy a city block.

Once you had one of those bombs go off on your block, you quickly became aware of the consequences of war.

War from that moment forward would no longer be seen as a solution, but rather as a failure to communicate.

Carl Sagan pointed out that humans don’t react to a problem unless that problem directly interferes with their lives.

They actually have to have a blockbuster drop at their home to realize there is a problem.

The world, our humanity, has an issue with hate.

Hate is an affective blanket for the selfish person.

Hate gives comfort because it allows the person to believe someone else is responsible for the problems in the world, not me.

There are a lot of people around us all the time, not just on Pennsylvania Ave., who wrap themselves up in their blankets and point at other people for their failings.

They are with us all the time.

We all know that many people around us practice hate.

But what are we to do?

How do we empower the indifferent to stand for what is right?

I don’t have an answer.

I’m not the first one to not have an answer.

There are many before and many after who will recognize the problem, but have no solution as to why so many willingly refuse to hear people crying.

Those who refuse to see people starving.

Those who refuse to speak up when evil is done.

We who hear the voice of love and live what love asks us to do are like that proverbial ‘voice in the wilderness’.

We are like the dog that barks in the middle of the night, warning the sleeping people that danger approaches.

What we can do, what we have always done, is speak truth to power.

What we can do is live a life of happiness.

What we can do is have compassion for the lost.

What we can do is be the emissaries of love, greet everyone with a smile, and demonstrate that a life lived to care for everyone is far better than living for the one.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Movement

What moves you?

A song.

A word.

A touch.

A feeling.

Friendship.

Kinship.

Love.

Anger.

Hate.

What moves you?

Crisis.

Justice.

Freedom.

What moves you?

Can you be moved?

Can you hear?

Can you read?

Can you feel?

What moves you?

Love pushes, but we resist.

Love pulls us, but we run the other way.

Love talks to us, but we turn up the noise.

Love touches us, but we numb ourselves.

Humanity is a strange beast.

A collection of opposites is this beast.

No single description can fully capture the essence of humanity.

We are hot, cold, fast, slow, brilliant, dull, visionary, blind, musical, deaf, dead, and alive.

All these attributes on a body of indifference.

What moves you?

What moves you?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

The Many

The enemy of peace is the middle.

Traditionally, we think the enemy of peace is the left or right.

But to think that way, you have to be either on the left or the right.

You’ve had to make a choice.

You’ve had to participate in life.

However, people who have decided to stand with the left or the right are substantially fewer in number compared to those who sit in the middle.

The tapestry, or better, the quilt blanket, which humanity turns out to be, is mainly constructed of threadbare fabric.

Fabric that just gets the job done and no more.

The bright, sparkly bits, the sequence, the gold and silver fringe, and the rainbow of colors are all at the edges.

Humanity is a majority dull wet blanket.

Humanity doesn’t want to participate in its future.

It doesn’t want to honor its past.

Humanity just wants to exist.

It wants to be left alone.

Period.

Humanity doesn’t want to make choices.

It doesn’t want to know what’s bad, what’s good, what’s new, what’s old.

Humanity doesn’t want to fight evil, hate, anger, prejudice, racism, or fascism.

Humanity, the many, couldn't care less about freedom, justice, and truth.

The many.

That is the many who do not care until it kicks them in their ass.

When they personally have lost their jobs, their orgasm, their favorite TV show, their freedom.

Then the many care.

That’s the reason why Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto lamented the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when he said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

It has been understood for thousands of years, by some of us, that humanity, at its core, is a dumb, sleeping giant, content with knowing nothing and doing nothing.

But if made angry, the sleeping giant will awaken and smash everything, including both the good and the bad.

That’s what we are up against: those warriors of the light, wanting a better world for all.

The right, the fascists, the nihilists woke the sleeping giant, gave the giant a red hat, and promised it could go back to sleep once America was great again.

The giant with the red hat is now confused.

The giant with the red hat was made a promise that it could feed on the blood of Democrats.

But the boy who gave them their red hats has told them, “Never mind, it was all a dream.”

All a dream…

The giant with the red hat is still angry.

The giant with the red hat still wants the blood it was promised.

What will the giant with the red hat, the many, do now?

Go back to sleep?

Or smash?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Hell's Kitchen

Everyday.

Doom.

Everyday.

Doom.

Every day, the same thing.

These people hate those people.

The universe crushes or drowns the innocent.

Everyday.

Every day, the same thing.

Just like Hell's Kitchen.

We're fed the same meal day after day.

Relentless tragedy.

Relentless doom.

Relentless idiocy.

Relentless doom.

Relentless terror.

The heat somehow finds a way to keep increasing.

The heat is on.

If you keep sitting in that pot, soon you'll find the waters around you are boiling.

Soon, you'll find your soul is cooked.

Boiled.

Here's some free advice… get the hell out of the kitchen.

Everyday.

We turn on the news.

We doom scroll.

Doom scroll?

Like suicidal moths diving into a fire, we want to feel the burn.

We got to feel the burn.

If we burn, we are doing something.

Outrage.

It's an addiction.

Do you know what fire does?

It destroys.

This media fire burns down compassion.

It fries intellect.

It consumes our reason.

The fact is, you can't live in the fire.

Bad news will incinerate your conscience.

No matter how bad you are jonesing for that hit of news heroine, you need to put the needle down and walk away.

We all need to put down that drug called bad news and seek redemption for our compassion.

Renewal.

Find perspective.

Cool off.

Come to peace with yourself, and the world will find peace with you.

When you're hot, when you're on fire, you don't have perspective.

You run from one crisis to another in a panic.

The sky is falling.

The sky is falling.

You'll become a roasted Chicken Little.

That's what the media wants us to do.

No perspective.

Lurching from one disaster to the next.

Consume… consume… consume.

Till we don't know right from wrong.

We are so burnt out from the news of the day that we passively sit and watch the commercials for relief from the doom of the hour.

Too much of anything isn't good for you.

If you haven't heard that before, now you have.

If the heat of the kitchen is driving you nuts… get out of the kitchen.

It's only then you'll find peace.

Perspective.

Your compassion.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Time

Not enough.

Too much when you are young.

Too little when you have built regret.

What’s a good use of time?

Being busy.

Being busy with what?

That’s the question all of our lives ask.

What are we doing here?

It’s easier to see what others are doing with their time.

It’s easy to critique.

My time spent is better than your time spent.

Spending time is the illusion that time is a commodity.

A currency.

Something that can be earned.

Something borrowed.

Something spent.

I take time away from the unimportant to spend on what I want more of.

I want more time.

Time to relax.

To sleep.

To dream.

Time to run.

To sing.

To laugh.

Time to get what I don’t have.

Love.

Time.

Not enough.

Too much when you are young.

Too little when you’re trapped inside your regret.

Time to run.

Time to sing.

Time to laugh.

Not enough.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby