There once was a book that followed me around. Amongst details in a new setting, I’d recognize the unmistakable purple cover. One day it showed up in a bookstore, and on a whim I bought it. When I found out what it was called, I couldn’t help but smile. You see, I had a “hippie” phase once. I listened to reggae, believed in silly things like peace and love, and read about religion and philosophy. I learned to live in the moment, meditate, and spend time alone in nature. I was optimistic, free, and happy a lot of the time. But then, the culture around me made sure I didn’t think I could keep wearing my rose-coloured glasses. More and more notices came in the mail to inform me that playtime was over. The new routine: listen to Top 40, become a sports fan, believe in serious things like money and careers, learn about finance and RRSPs, buy insurance, memorize a fixed address, wake up with coffee, fall asleep with beer, watch the new season, dress to impress, don’t waste time. I became more cynical, jaded, tied down, and stressed out a lot of the time. Irreversible damage was being done to my soul, and I longed for mystery. But along the path of starting a family, the relieving reminders of HERE & NOW never stopped appearing. It eventually became my centering mantra, and it even went as far as manifesting itself as an entire book to follow me around. It taught me to recognize when I’m thinking, saying, or doing something to appease my ego, like a guilty pleasure, always lurking whenever I use the word “I” (like in this very booklet… in fact, could this whole album be for my ego?). This led to me regarding my possession of property as petty, which passed onto all instances of property, including so-called “intellectual property” (as if there’s actually such thing as an “original idea”). I then began shying away from the progress of technology, trying to hide from the rising obsession with urgency and quantification (real-time management of imaginary wealth). In a world with so many screens and windows, it’s hard to tell if you’re looking at your reflection, or your Facebook façade. But if you can find some way to remind yourself that you’re always in a game that you’re losing, you can step back and laugh at it all. I still can’t help but smile whenever I’m lost in thought and suddenly log out to find the scene I’m in, as if I’m returning from some intangible place where I indeed exist, back to the big-picture real-world where there’s really no “me”, just a perceptive shape in the shape-shifting mystery of life. Not everyone is drawn to this way of being (yet), but those of us who are, we must find each other. It doesn’t have to turn into a primitive commune in the woods; the goal is to rekindle unity, bringing tribal living to our current day and age. The old ways of neighbourhood dependency can be carried forward to reunite us lost and lonely souls of this imposed globally-dependent society. We need a lifestyle where all the number-counting and clock-ticking is drowned out by the birds and the bees. A lifestyle where love is wild, and expressed in its purest form, as corny as that sounds. Where sex is innocent. Where friends are brothers and sisters, and vice versa. Where possession is casual and sharing trumps trade. A place called HERE & NOW… population: 1.