Turn It Down

Commercials scream at you.

The music bounces off you.

The sneer on a stranger’s face at you.

Turn it down.

The heat in politics is too hot.

The coldness in those who signed up to protect us.

The silent majority.

Turn it down.

Life today is so loud that we can’t hear the voices all around us crying for help.

You don’t hear them?

Did you think the poor, the hungry, the people living in fear just went away?

Did you ever think that you kept turning up the volume in your life so you didn’t have to care?

You take the kids to practice.

You watch your team.

You get high.

Drunk.

All of it, and more, so you don’t have to hear the noise.

A person said in the distant past in a land far, far away, Tune in or drop out.

Having your life’s volume set to 10 is nothing new.

If you are a human, it’s understandable that there is only so much you can bear.

What with earning a living, life events, the world is a hectic place.

What I’m telling you is if you don’t stop and listen, your life will end up being…

…

Nothing.

Everyone has a purpose.

Even you.

They may not want to know what it is and spend their entire life screaming so they don’t have to know.

But even the loudest voice in the room has a purpose beyond existence.

Right now, out here in the real world, you can hear a storm approaching.

The rumbles of thunder spread across the fruited plain.

It’s a voice in reaction.

We who can hear have been called out to fulfill our purpose.

The voices that called us out are the voices of our past, wanting to maintain a status that’s impossible to restore.

But hell, they are going to try even if it means destroying 250 years of democracy.

By turning down the volume of our lives, we can hear what the future is bringing and what the past wants to hold on to.

If we don’t turn it down, we will suffer a clash of expectations.

A past that believes it will live forever.

A future without wisdom.

Turn down the volume and listen to the cries for help.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Where Is Love

You can’t look for love because love has to find you.

You can’t make someone love you.

For love to enter your life, you must do the work to be ready to receive it.

Today, the analogy of a seed planted in a field still holds truer than ever.

Imagine you want love to grow in your life.

You can’t just drop love on your life and expect it to grow.

No.

You have to prepare the soil.

You have to get rid of the weeds.

You have to turn yourself over, breaking up your hard-packed ideals.

You must compost compassion, empathy, and the water of life within yourself.

This isn’t done overnight.

It takes a season to prepare yourself to truly receive love.

Once your soil, your life is ready, love will find you.

As love grows in your life, you will soon realize you have to keep up with the maintenance of your garden.

You have to keep out the weeds that will creep back in.

You have to mind the pests that will eat up your life.

You will have to water that garden every day for the rest of your life for as long as you live.

For this reason alone, so many brother and sisters turn their backs on love.

It’s too much work to participate in life.

They blind themselves to compassion.

They dull the feelings of empathy.

They ignore the voices all around them, preferring only their own voice.

These brothers and sisters who have rejected love have always been here.

Hate is not a new phenomenon in this world.

Hate, like love, also needs help to grow.

For hate to grow, it first needs fear.

Fear feeds hate, which grows into anger.

Hate needs someone to blame.

Hate thrives on lies.

Hate multiplies when irrigated with ignorance.

Hate blooms when it matures into a bully.

A tyrant.

Do you see how hate has grown in our shared world lately?

Ask yourself.

Where is love?

Where are you?

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

Happy Place

Where is your happy place?

When you listen to the voice of love, it will direct you to the place where your happiness is.

Ignore that voice at your peril.

When we try to live our lives in silence, darkness has a way of roaring into our souls.

When we tell ourselves, 'Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow is good enough,' we imperil our connection to life.

Where is your happy place?

Folks, tomorrow is not good enough.

When a person is drowning, you don’t say I’ll get back to you tomorrow.

Let me think about it.

Let’s not be in a rush.

The time is now!

Now is always the right time to do right.

Now is the hour when we listen to love and find our happiness.

Now is the time to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

That doesn’t just mean the poor.

No.

It also means those who are blinded by hate.

It means to reach out to those who can’t hear people cry.

Talking to those afraid of the future.

It is only through giving of ourselves that we, in return, are given grace.

Happiness.

Where is your happy place?

Wish you love.

Peace

Daniel J. Frey aka Toby

The Ask

The difference between good and evil is that good asks and evil tells you.

PATTERN RECOGNITION TEST:

Goodness will ask only once.

Evil will search for every possible loophole to avoid doing what is right.

An example is don’t kill.

Evil will say, except for war…

Except for peace.

Except for race, for culture, for religion, for nationality, for crime, for birth, or just because the son of a bitch deserved it.

Goodness will ask us not to steal once.

Evil will say, except if you are an employee, an employer, an investment company, a charity, a religion, or a vulture capitalist.

A parent ignoring their child.

The ask comes at us every day.

Just like the old angel and devil on the shoulder routine in animated comedy shorts.

Goodness asks us to do the right thing.

Evil says it’s a waste of time, nobody cares, you deserve what you have, don’t share, what did they do, nothing, keep what you got, you’re a good person.

Don’t be a sucker.

Notice again the pattern.

Goodness asks once.

Assumes you are an adult and can remember to do the right thing.

Goodness assumes you don’t have to be constantly reminded to do good.

Evil is the adolescent mind looking for those loopholes so it doesn’t have to do any chores.

Yeah.

Yeah, doing right is a chore.

Doing right is not always convenient.

Evil knows this.

Evil leaders, whether in the world, in your circle of friends, in your family, evil knows you don’t want to get involved.

Take it easy, don’t worry; it will work itself out. Time will tell. You’re a great person; everyone knows it. You deserve what you have. What did anyone do for you? Blame those people!

Remember this…

The next time you are listening to someone come up with multiple reasons why they did something, why you should listen to them, they are most likely not acting in your best interest.

Only their own.

Freedom, liberty, and justice take vigilance.

It ain’t easy being free.

Someone will always have a shit load of reasons why you should take it easy.

Let your freedom go.

Blame.

Watch for the pattern.

Drop hate.

Be hope.

Peace

Daniel J Frey aka Toby

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