If to get it you gotta not get it, and you don't get it did you get it?

This question may come across as a paradox, a mind-fucker, a trip into forgetfulness, or even the satisfaction of getting it. The sequence remains the same, but the conclusion varies from individual to individual. There are many ways of not getting it, but if you get it, you got it.

LA VERGA NO ES PELONA ("the dick isn't bald") is a Mexican expression that, at first glance, might seem vulgar — and it is. Nonetheless, it's a statement implying I wasn't born yesterday.

Which is to say I have experience.

LA VERGA NO ES PELONA is written not to entertain, not to teach, but to challenge you: to fade the walls of the maze of existence.

If you go far enough, you might find out the walls were real… but not really real… or maybe really, really real.

This isn't necessarily about the things you experience — it's about how you experience them.

It's all about it.

About who the fuck is it.

Why the fuck is it.

What the fuck is it.

And how the fuck does it even have to do with you.

This book isn't a puzzle to solve.

There's no mystery.

Spoiler alert: you are the climax.

Here's the fucking guacamole: you are the main character.

Potentially, you will find out why.

But if you don't get this, you'll remain the main character without being the main character.

I know I come across as a madafaca, but there's just no other way for me to lay it out, to unroll it for you.

Here's a little piece of information — maybe it'll have value for you, maybe not. But it's highly related to the subject, because it involves the mind and an approach.

Speaking of approach, let's look at an example: Golf.

Par five.

Let's say I'm a low-handicap golfer. Ideally, I want an eagle — two shots under par.

The rule is this: Reality doesn't exist until it's been measured.

So potentially, I could make that eagle… or shamefully go ten over par, pick up my ball, and walk it off head high.

It's not just about drawing closer.

It's about the quality, the tact in those advances.

The tools you have or don't have.

The quality of the result depends on the quality of the approach.

If I get a birdie — one below par — well, I didn't get my eagle, but I still fucking got it.

Get it?

There are worse ways of not getting it.

And now that I got my birdie, I actually got it.

It's a fact.

Not a potential.

Not an opinion.

It's my fucking birdie.

You chase the impossible — and you'll still outpace the ordinary.

Condition yourself to be the king — maybe you end up a duke.

Condition yourself to be the peasant — you'll most likely stay the peasant.

Look at this — it's related.

If you approached psychiatry in the early 1800s, you would find the definition of the word: healing of the soul.

The meaning shifted.

By the early 1900s, the activity had a completely different approach: the medical treatment of mental diseases.

No word was put in place to substitute the original definition.

Do you get it?

The reduction.

We went from the concept of a high-voltage spirit in a meat suit — towards the treatment of mental diseases.

This newer approach placed the mind — the full idea of it — inside the brain.

A piece of meat.

Just meat dust in a blind, godless wind.

Amen, motherfuckers.

Some form of authority — by whichever means, assumptions, or partial observations — concluded that a human is the product of complete randomness, yours truly of the physical domain.

It was adopted as truth by the scientific community, weighted, and became the new dominant approach.

What was known as the Age of Reason or the Age of Enlightenment quickly transitioned into Materialism.

The Age of Reason pushed the idea that humans should rely on their own abilities to reason, rather than on customs, traditions, or authorities like religion or government to determine what is true.

But as reason rose to power, so did a new idea: that only what could be observed, measured, and explained by science was real — and everything else, including the soul, was written off as bullshit.

Consciousness?

Just a mishmash of brain chemicals.

A fucking glitch.

A side effect.

The effects of adopting materialism as the norm of reasoning are reflected in the quality of our results.

Established institutions have assumed that only physical matter is real.

What matters is matter — and spirituality doesn't really matter.

This kind of approach flawlessly justifies treating animals — and others — like dog shit.

In the end, everything is just matter to produce matter, and make a profit to buy and invest in more matter.

Don't get me wrong — I love steaks, good cars, and all the good shit.

Mostly, I cherish the ingenuity, the aesthetics, the creative approach of things.

I'm not here to tell you a fake-ass story about how John Wayne had forty pounds of shit in his colon when he died after eating lots of red meat.

Also not here to preach, tell you to be a hippie, live off the grid, smell like shit, don't shower, and "save the water."

The point is: how you approach something matters.

If you opened a Chinese book and knew Chinese, you'd get it.

If not? You wouldn't — unless your Chinese wife read it to you.

But you don't necessarily have to get married to get it.

You could find other ways of approaching it — maybe just fire up your updated Chow Mein app translator.

It's not just about getting it — it's about how you get it.

Or how you don't get it.

Get it?

The way the Irish treat their cattle versus industrial cattle — that's another banger example.

Every time you eat an Irish steak, you feel like a fucking Na'vi from Avatar.

You bite that meat and go, "I see you, broski. Hasta luego. Thank you — and thank you for the T-bone."

But when that meat comes from some factory horror-slaughter setup — and you know it — that's when it hits different.

You're contributing to something you don't even want to think about.

It becomes taboo.

We all pretend that shit doesn't happen, or that the end justifies the means.

That's materialism's way: fuck it all, profit is proof.

But here's the thing: Cows do suffer.

They're sentient.

They feel pain, stress, fear — physically and emotionally.

They form bonds.

With other cows.

Even with humans.

And pretending they don't — just to keep chewing — that's part of the sickness in how we approach shit.

And the industrial cow? That's the receipt of that approach.

Is it my imagination?

No fucking way.

All you have to do is look — and ask yourself: what's happening to that animal?

If I were an Irish cow, I wouldn't want to die.

But if I were an industrial cow, I couldn't wait to.

And I'm just going to leave it here — nothing to do with it but everything to do with it: The way we approach others is the way we approach ourselves.

Suicide rates are higher than ever.

What kind of fucking evil misrepresented Socratic approach is this?

Disengaging from an evident truth, looking to the other side and saying, "I know nothing."

What's your favorite fucking TV show lately?

We bred them to suffer.

We profited from their pain.

We numbed ourselves to it — all while we had the ability to do better.

We fucking failed them.

No, I don't blame science.

Science is a beautiful thing, with many applications.

Its activity lives inside its definition: knowledge, or a system of knowledge, covering general truths.

To keep it simple: You can pursue knowledge, or you can create knowledge.

For example, study your grandma's recipe, or create a new banging taco.

Whatever.

If you really grasp it, you'll understand it.

You might follow grandma's recipe to the dot — measurement and all — and it still doesn't hit the same way.

You grasped the recipe, but you may understand: it's not just about the steps.

It's about the spark.

It's about the individuality that grandma brought into it.

To fully get grandma's recipe, you would need to have grandma in the recipe.

Get it?

What would Materialism have to say?

Probably that all you need for grandma's recipe is everything written in the recipe — except grandma.

Now, approach this idea as if you were grandma.

If I were grandma, I'd say: Fuck you all.

Without me, there's no recipe.

Maybe there's a grandma in you — an abuelita stitching it all together — not just atoms bumping into each other.

Maybe there's a causality, not pure chance.

Or maybe not.

Who gives a shit?

I give a shit.

And potentially — just maybe — you do too.