on a small island with a fragile ecosystem

I don't get the crooked signs and things that look like people but really aren't. It's frustrating if I try to swim against the currents, thinking I have to swim in my own direction, but if I just let go and let myself be carried down river it frees up a large portion of my brain to do other things.

 Where is it gonna carry me if I just let go? It won't be right in this spot, it'll be in some different spot.
If I try to struggle and make the path, who am I struggling against?  Reality? Other people? Myself?
It never feels right, if I hold some idea in my head of where I want to go, then try to make a path that leads there. The parts never meet up. I end up with a bunch of places I wanna plug things, but no wires. The ropes don't stretch all the way. The pieces don't fit together. There's all these gaps where the juices leak out.

Sleeping outside is easy, in parks, in forests, among the rocks and dirt. In the trees on the side of the highway with lights and low rumbles tumbling by ever couple seconds, swollen clouds spitting now and then. Stumbling exhausted into bushes near a park, kicking all the shit and trash out of the way so I can have room to throw out my tarp and sleeping bag. Listening to some tweaked out homebum screaming while I fall asleep.

I enjoy having nothing to do, or getting around to the shit that needs done on my own time. I like having no expectations, not needing to worry about anything. Worrying and struggling seem like a waste of effort, when you can just wait around until its time to do stuff instead.

Calling strangers on the phone to discuss made up stuff like bills or credit or interviews, with its maze of invisible rules, is agony. I get so tired of it that I just decide to crash through the walls blindly not even thinking what the next step might be, let the chips fall where they may, and usually things turn out better that way. I have to fool myself to get there, though. Distract my mind for a second then jump.

I'm fine growing my own food, I'm fine pulling food out of dumpsters, fermenting veggies, salting meat, baking sourdough bread, cooking over a fire, I'm fine stealing food.
I'm happy begging, I'm okay sometimes working if the work doesn't demand too much of my brain function. I'd rather be cooking or sewing or building for friends and trade, but you make due with what you can get.

There's nothing wrong with being lazy. People are supposed to be lazy. Ancient man goofed off and did whatever seemed like the thing they should do all day and it worked out for them. Doing that in the real world works out too. You end up getting exactly as much as you need and no extra. If you don't need much then it doesn't take much effort and you might even be able to put a little away for down the road. If you store up a bunch of biosurvival things (money, friends, favors etc) then you have surplus you can coast on. If everybody still lived this way we probably wouldn't have all the excess technology stress and diseases we do.

There's forces that pressurize every system, and things usually want to stabilize at a place of equal pressure. Think of osmosis in cells, or magnetism, or gravity, thermodynamics, or population ecology, or lift on an airplane wing. You can spend energy to push yourself up that hill, but then coast down. If you put in a little energy on that coast down you can manipulate it so that you don't have to spend as much energy coasting up into that next hill. You can find a groove and surf on your input/outputs. Balancing work and play until they become synonymous, like halves of the same whole, ya dig?

People's names fly through one ear and out the other the minute they say them. Probably because I'm too busy being anxious and trying to make all the right gestures and facial expressions to not appear like a robot. Knowing this about myself I usually tell people my name several times during an introductory conversation, and then again at the end. I don't know if it works, but I feel like they don't usually forget my name.

I still can't shit

The days drift by in both agonizing slowness, and with bewildering speed. My waking life seems one long stretch of empty corridors, while the past recedes in piles of lost years. The mind is a maze without end, furious piles of stares and locked windows painted black, and jammed doors that must be forced and only open onto more stairs and frantic nests of empty rooms.

I can't escape from it. When I'm alone, I'm lonesome. Around people, I'm practically paralyzed in the fear of making social faux pas. Or else I dare to make a fool of myself, only to end up regretting it.

I'm disappointed every day I wake up. By noon I feel totally reborn and powerful, ready to take on the world in all its challenges and ring every drop from life. By 3:30 PM the crushing weight is back.

If everything is doomed to death then life itself is an absurdity. Anything can be done because we're free from consequences. This logic works in the world of fantasy, but not in the world of flesh and blood. Adventures are filled with mostly waiting. The worker is the victim of a vampire, whether he knows it or not. The difference is that the ignorant one isn't aware of his pain. The worker who can feel his blood being drained but is powerless to stop it is at a much worse place.

Unless he can find a way to rebel, and stay there. Or otherwise weaken the vampire's grasp.

I don't know how to do that. I tried living without a house, traveling the country. I tried making friends and building something. Each endeavor burns and crashes with no satisfying resolution.

++++++

Upon writing all this out I can even devise arguments against each and every statement. I've grown and developed into a totally different person in the few years I've been on the road. I've learned social skills, I've developed a form of self-esteem, I've destroyed and replaced just about every barricade to my development. I've learned to survive on nothing, how to manage money, how to let go of painful emotions.

The insidious power of depression is that it makes you forget the times you weren't depressed. It never leaves, though. It's always waiting around the corner, to catch you alone. I need a bell and a hammer to crash away it's intrusions. Maybe that's what art & writing is for. Just clench and squeeze and fuck out all the words, all the feelings, all the terror and useless crap and wad it all up and burn it.

There's a fine balance to be struck between effort and no effort. If you push too hard or try to force it the whole thing stops up. This goes for everything. If you let your eyes kind of cross and loosen your grip a bit and steer intuitively, using your peripherals to guide you, it becomes easier.

You have to push gently.

My lungs hurt.

++++++

The biggest predicament is that I struggle with what it means to feel. I want to be able to feel with my whole body, to know deep in my bones a resonating vibration. I want to smile uncontrollably, to laugh until it hurts, to have my skin crawl, a cool breeze on a warm evening to bristle my hair. I want fear to strike like a bolt from the blue. I want icy chills, and grumbles, and triumphs, and passion, and fervor, and humility, and idolatry. I want to be stunned senseless, struck speechless, enraptured, nurtured. I want the world to be real, to affect me as I effect it.

How do I find feeling? Inside me there is only cold dull grey static, loud as the pounding of the ocean, that drives away life. There is a bruised and swollen ache which isn't so much a feeling as a smothering voidness. I can feel the lack of feeling, a clenching in my guts, the sinking of my shoulders, an ache in my neck, the shortness of my breath. I can feel my body full of cysts and tumors, my spirit malignant and infected, my soul shriveled and fearful. I can awaken to the feeling of an exposed insect in the bright light of god's damning gaze.

The nerves are dead.

INFINITE LIGHTNING DEATH SUNDAE

This is how you do it right:

1 banana, cut in half
two big fat scoops of the best quality vanilla ice cream you can find

Necessary toppings:
shaved dark chocolate
minced candied ginger
You can stop right there if you want. It's simplicity lets every flavor shine through. The ginger adds a bit of spice that melts well with all the sweet. If you're XTREME read on:

chopped strawberries
a drizzle of honey
sunflower seeds

Optional, but recommended: crushed potato chips (try pickle flavor!), a dash of Louisiana hot sauce, chocolate cake, cookie dough, maraschino cherries

If you're truly brave use a slice of pepperoni-jalapeno pizza as a bowl.

Eat with chop sticks, or blend it all up into a milk shake.

path in the woods

Thing not shown
dew creep mound reap,

skyward under

mines above

Once there was birth unlived, the slow of stone. The yoke of binding. Coil of orange glow branching against the black. From the cold met heat and there could be life.

Once there was rot begun, then the flourishing, followed by the movement, then edges collect fires, then collect soils.

Purify essence. Fixing the smaller movements into big. The unshaped is still becoming.

As it does, the shapes too unshape. More shapes can be made. The flow of one into many, of smooth over hard, and back.

I cannot say why it started, but here it is, unresting. It gives to all, the all give back. The drawing is circular. The discard reshuffled. Things don’t stay things for long.

How can it not be beautiful? Because the shapes can unshape, we are given life. If they could not, we could not. That they do, so do we.

To hold on is foolish. Grasp the flame, what now? Hold your breath, how long? Take up spade and pick, dynamite and lantern, discover toil.

What of air? It moves but is unseen. It gives vital breath, but is not reduced. If we are cut off from it we return to soil. The air feeds fire. Trapped in water, it feeds life. Trapped in soil it feeds life. Trapped in fire, there life becomes. Inside the fast transition there is movement. Fiery particles slow and form together. In time energy collects until it must be released. Forests burn, ice caps melt, animals perish, stars wink out.

From that energy released, new compounds form. Mass pulls together, gathers density, elements swirl and recombine, something else is made.

What is upward comes downward.

To stay downward is to conserve energy. Things in movement must expend energy. Sometimes movement must be made, but perpetual movement cannot be sustained. On flat ground a hiker can move about 3 miles per hour. Perhaps she covers 24 miles in a day. The next day she covers 20 miles. The next day she covers 18 miles. What is happening?
The gut contains colonies of microorganisms. For optimal health beneficial bacteria and harmful bacteria form an alliance, each feeding energy into the other cyclically. Nature naturally pulls towards balance, but if that balance tips the scales begin to move. Alliances can’t exist forever, things degrade.

One becoming is another’s unbecoming. There isn’t movement without shift, there isn’t energy without displacement. One thing gives for another to pass through. Yielding force allows things to be. If it could not yield, then it could not move.

The origination of movement and being is flexibility.

Raiders crash against the gate. The gate does not give. They are repelled. Which is the yielding force? Without the additional land and resources from this raid their population cannot continue to grow at the present time. Will the become open to attack from an outside force? Which is the yielding force?
The monsoons come. As the rain churns the land into mud, who is yielding now? As the minerals replenish the soil for next season, who will control the canals?

I cannot speak much of yielding. What I know of is solidity. The things I know gather together and form tight cement. Soon the breath around us becomes a prison. Psychically we scream to one another through the brick, but the words are dim and muddled. I shine my light into the blackness, is my flicker seen? I can see the edges of black water, but can make out no further shapes.

To be cut off. Can we re-emerge?

The energy gathers until it feels like bursting. Where can it go, when the walls are brick? I must find or I must die.

This moment is a trap, and we suffer as we relive it instead of release. Breathing can help. Movement can help. Yielding creates an opening. Opening creates space. Inside space there can be movement. Air fills open spaces. The valley collect the rain and thus the minerals. In the low lands there is richness and fertility. Much grows. The rains churn. The river washes away. All draws back into the Ocean.

Let me try again.

I am bound up, tied up, made up. Lost up.

Too high and there isn’t any air.
Too low and there isn’t any either.

Just right and we’re drawn along the edges, two forces which meet and repel each other. Their movement generates friction, and this friction generates energy. The mega-dynamo. The experience and the experiencer.

Hang on I have to shit.

I didn’t shit. Who yielded?

The Categorizor meets and contrasts elements into a formation which generates a world. This world is constructed of associations forming a web. Yet it is only one voice.
Instead there is a multiplicity. The things between. That which unseem. The breaker. The lord. Timely essence.

Which of these voices is the listener? With concentration one can move between different levels, but we shoot in the dark, archers firing arrows into a forest, candled by candlelight. If we continue to persist in one direction we uncover new land and out insight and associations grow. Yet things continue to move. Even when we aren’t focused on them. Perhaps we spot a deer, or avoid a trap. Others move in the woods too.

Which sense do we use? The form? The mind? Light? Smell? All at once. What else could there be? There is only all at once. What is, simply is. You can’t make it not be. Things can happen even when you don’t experience them, because their movement allow yours.

To grasp and try to hold is impossible. Nothing can stay still for long, and the more energy put into a system, the more is begins to move. Thus do we guide ourselves by light. The fire catches at the edges, and all is burning. Hearing, sight, taste, touch, thought. It moves, do we move with it? We have no choice. The slope is steep and we move. To resist is an illusion. What we might be able to do instead is observe its movement, know it, and so by guide ourselves along with it.

That which goes low gathers speed, then rests. In its rest it is restored, then it can move again. Where am I now? Am I resting or moving? When does one become the other.

It is late. I sleep.

The sun arrives, and I rise.

I am fueled by porridge and perform my work. My work is my energy, my reward is my fuel.

The stars descend and so do I.

The fire consumes fuel. Without fuel there is no fire. Where along this path am I? Ascending or descending? How do my daily actions promote this cycle? Am I flowing with or against this movement?

Escape is not found. Movement is into fertile areas and out of dead ones. Osmosis collects energy, and eventually that energy seeks a path into a lower system. Moving downwards is the natural way, into the lower curve, the valley. The opening which gives birth to all.

Even steam rising into the air is moving downwards, high energy into lower state. Rain returns, and along the way brings something with it. The minerals return to the primordial ocean, the greatest valley of them all.

Dark night. The sea lapped against the jutting rises. Skittering movers scooped foetids into grasping maws, released gaseous dark.

Cold sun eye is solemn, too slow to cast. Too close to blink.

Cold and moist they prowl and slither. Hot and dry they raise stone tablets to it’s name.

Hot and moist there’s growing. Cold and dry for moonrocks.

The intelligent commander guides without haste, but without hesitation. He is not brash, and calculates each move. I know that if danger is near and time is rushed mistakes will be made. He knows to act only when the odds are in his favor. If they are not he must silently withdraw and reposition himself at a better vantage point. Intelligence is lost of one is not aware. To be aware is to be wise. The wise see much, but know little.

To know is to set in stone, to be inflexible. To know is to be sure, to be active and dominant. Knowing cannot adapt. If it could change it would not be knowing. The only truth is that Truth is changing. Nothing stays still forever. If it didn’t change, it couldn’t be Truth. If it didn’t change it would be permanent. No cycle is without end, thus nothing is permanent.

If one thing was permanent it would collect all and not relinquish. It would be a vacuuming void of oblivion. Since all does move, there must be no permanent.

The commander does not know he knows this, yet he acts on the principal. No position is perfectly safe, no tactic guaranteed to win. The variables and the possibilities require consideration. To ignore them is to be overwhelmed by them. Yet the commander can guess which possibility to acknowledge and which to discard. This he does with his wisdom. Knowing the cycle of things he can extrapolate.

Yet things still move outside of view. The commander only rolls the dice when he feels that he is certain. To know this he must wait as long as is useful, to gather and sort information.

Not all things need to be acted upon. We can discern important matters from unimportant matters. To make best use of this ability we must be mindful of ourselves. It is easy to get lost in delusion, in things which appear in the mind as expectations, but which are not likely. Desires are often this. It is something one wants, yet doesn’t have. This could be food or sex, it could be greed and revenge.

Things move without us needing to do anything at all. When do we know to insert our hand and guide it? We can never be completely certain all the time. It is impossible to know all outcomes.

Becoming involved with an energy system is to change the flow of that system. It is unwise to get involved with every system, chaos and unrest result. The more the systems move, the more they continue to move, producing extra variables, until the cycle begins to require more energy than there is fuel.

High intensity systems burn out. Low intensity systems gather energy. With energy there can be movement. If this movement is used skillfully a flow can be caught and the system can be surfed to the next crest. This requires concentration and humility. If we are quiet and look from below we may observe the passage of other systems, then choose the time to act. Low energy sees more. Gripping hard puts more energy into that system. With distractions come mistakes, come wasted effort, come unforeseen effects.

Being caught off guard is dangerous. Defense keeps its energy prepared for an opening, then launches into action.

Knowing when to act on a system involves having a basis for expectation. The ending of an energetic system is as good a place to start as any, because it is inevitable. Nothing is permanent. Generosity defeats greed because it is prepared to lose. If one is prepared to lose one is prepared to act and can choose for themselves the path.

The sage is stationary but aware. She lets things slip through her fingers. Their passage propels her forward. Minding her own passage she accepts what is and discards what is not. She experiences without clinging. She savors, and its cessation is part of the flavor. Music is created by highs and lows, starts and stops. Air moves mind.

Seasons change at the cycle begins again. A favorite pot breaks. We are but temporary caretakers. Sweetness is known by what is sour, but the sweetest of flavors dull the tongue. The highest notes deafen the ear. The greatest sensations stun the body. With our eyes constantly moving we see even less.

What is can be known, what isn’t gives rise to possibility.

It feels good to release, to unclench. It is possible to release at any time. Watching the mind with skill one becomes aware of its movements, can foresee its needs. The mind is not separate, yet it is an interrelated force. Things feed back into one another.

When thirsty, drink.

When hungry, eat.

When tired, sleep.

At the root, there are needs. What else is adornment. Beware of adornments which parade as needs. Greed and envy breed theft and loss.

Great treasures are difficult to protect.

One who seeks fame fears obscurity.

One who is content with obscurity doesn’t mind.

To give is virtue. To yield is to evade.

An overpowering force is useless if it does not connect.

Sinking to the lowest creates the least.

If less is held, less can be lost.

With less weight the traveler may move more quickly and expend less energy. He brings just what he needs: a blanket, a hat, a knife, a flame. He has no spare room for frivolous trinkets, but does not let the existence of frivolous trinkets ensnare his mind. He simply leaves them behind.

He must traverse unknown territory and prepares properly. Most importantly he brings his wit and focus. Without these no tool can save him.

Along the way he may improvise, he may take chances, but he does so knowingly. He bides is time and acts upon what seems natural, leaving escape routes and detours open. If he finds himself trapped he can blame none but himself for his folly.

The more mental formations one holds the less flexible ones reality become. The more knowing, the less is known. Exceedingly hard things are often brittle. The more things are possessed the more they struggle to be free. To allow them to fall away if they want is to release. Gravity pulls it away on its own. Without binding there is union, and life flourishes. Things held against their will are miserable. Nothing is permanent.

All things result from other things, there is no other possibility. There is no nothing, there is only existence. Whatever must be simply is. Whatever cannot be, simply isn’t. What arises must arises along with other things. There is a path which one can trace back from every sense-experience of possibilities which arrives, a series of things which do exist transpiring into further things.

That movement becoming is the valley which gives birth to all things. Seemingly without end things continue to arise from other occurrences, never staying still for long. Events transpire, form, and fade, only to spawn new life from their existence. Though they are gone, they ripple outward.

How satisfying and beautiful it is to watch the parade of forms as it moves! The kaleidoscope of their birth and death knows to bounds, and shares with us the most beautiful views. I am grateful to see it for what it is, and I am excited to see where it goes.

The painful and ugly give us texture.

Even vinegar has a sweet flavor when one knows how to experience it.

To know this is to know sourness well enough to not flinch, but not to cling to the concept that sourness. To know the flavor one must turn their attention to it.

self-righeous absolutism

Words by worth and nothing death

to ease the pain of fake breath,

the turning tide which never ends

seeking cliffs of life begins

What is the worth of this one life? Essentially, it is pointless. To us, in the moment, at the concurrent second of our experience, it seems to be the only ‘which is’. To all other perspectives, it is of ever decreasing value. So the view appends more distantly, so too does the value.

We, ourselves, naturally find our existence be of the highest level of importance. The assumption is placed upon its inevitability. At certain contingent times, when our spiritual limits are put to the test, we may reckon than our individual existence may be extinguished to support the gathered ‘whole’. In times of war and sacrifice this is evident.

At such times we bare witness to the ‘all’ which gathers within the self. We know that, though our particular interest fails, those we can never experience may gain even a moment of respite from the suffering which travails them.

This momentary experience is equivocal to total enlightenment. Total enlightenment may be experienced by any being, so long as it contains a mind of selfless detachment to its sense-experience. The center of this experience, germinating outwards, is the Vector of Being. As the Vector of Being grows, so too does the awareness of self.

The ‘Vector of Being’ is the space in which an experiential creature is witness to its own existence. It is the subjective reality through which you experience everything in your life. This state of mind is undefinable from outside it’s own existence. That is to say, we can only infer the existence of minds without ourselves. The necessary quality of the Vector of Being is that such an experience springs from a material quality.

‘Vector of Being’ has no central axis, except for that axis which is initially experienced in every moment. As the Sense-experience continues to upend itself endlessly, so too does the Vector of Being adjust itself. It is a scale which resets tare with each measurements it makes, against the previous weight, and in its use measures all things.

The scales of morality are the tools which the Vector of Being uses to define its purpose, and its gradient. There is no definition for these. Morality is never a solid bedrock, but through the ages transforms at the whim of a thousand Vectors. Those Vectors witness themselves and playfully dabble at a concept of an Initial Vector which places before them a concrete example which resets all Tares.

This is an illusion, as such an immutable Morality is again another measure by which the Vector of Being resets itself.

Each new life which experiences a Vector of Being, with its own rules and ideas about how it conceives and creates its subjective reality. The religious and the scientific. The liberal and the conservative. The fascist and the anarchist. Each exist in a universe apart from the other, which no reconcilable similarities.

Whence does an immutable reality come? From a holy book? From outside? We’re born into life with no knowledge. Can a planet with but a single living creature hope to attain enlightenment without external interference? 
 

A conscious an awake god would bury the rules for existence within the very fabric of itself, so that the aspirant may look at any thing and discover its true purpose. The rules for attainment may be seen anywhere, with no special purpose, available to all. A free source enlightenment.

Luckily, we live in such a universe.

With no other tool than our eyes we may witness the cycles of the universe, and the rules by which is governs itself.

The coyote eats dead flesh and shits.

Ten thousand shits make a pile of rotten dirt.

Rotten dirt is food for plants.

Plants grow, scatter seeds, and are eaten by herbivores. Herbivores range, scatter seeds, scatter shit, till the land.

Plants grow in their shit and sustain other herbivores.

Herbivores are eaten to nourish the coyotes.

So too are their corpses, and the corpses of such therein.

On and on and on. No mystery. The most simple of all can see this truth. Never it is necessary to ask the proof of a truth so fundamental.

So too are the rules of the cycles of existences, of life, of love, of morality. They are plain to see, and any eye who wishes to look upon them may find it without trouble.

CHILI and LEMONADE

I was feeling homesick today so I made a dish that's tied very much to my childhood: chili! In Oklahoma we make our chili with tomatoes and beans. This chili doesn't have beans because it was a spur of the moment thing and I didn't have any soaked.

OKIE CHILI
1 # 85% lean grass fed beef chuck
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 # bacon, cooked, chopped, oil reserved
1 big onion, chopped
1 whole heads of garlic, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 tbsp new mexico chili powder
1 tbsp hungarian paprika
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp chili flakes
2 tsp cumin seeds or 1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp oregano
2 FRESH bay leaves
2 oz 72% dark chocolate
1/2 c splash of STRONG black coffee
3/4 c water
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

get ingredients ready.
in heavy pot brown ground beef.
add salt. add onions, bell pepper, garlic, cook until soft about 10 minutes.
add all the spices except bay leaves & bacon & reserved bacon grease. stir and continue to

cook for about 1 minute (this is called blooming or tempering, it 'wakes up' the spices, its done in indian cooking) add can of tomatoes, water, coffee, chocolate, bay leaves mix all together.
cover and simmer 1 hour, stirring occassionally.

Notes: Might halve hungarian paprika and increase amount chili powder next time

LEMONADE
2 cups fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 7 fat ripe lemons)
zest of 2-3 lemons
1/2 cup sugar (you could use half honey)
dash salt
1 inch ginger grated
6 cups water (try soda water)
sprigs mint (optional)
ice

you can make small batches in a cocktail shaker!
try adding a splash or two of gin or whiskey!

D&D: the game for travelers

Marinus van Reymerswaele "two tax collectors"

In hobo culture Magic the Gathering is the big thing. Lots of travelers play it because it's dynamic and portable. It's easy to put together a basic deck. Anyone can quickly learn to play. I'm not into it. You gotta acquire all these cards somehow, keep track of 'em. There's a big gap between dabblers and serious guys--such that the dabblers are better off playing something else. I think there's a more traveler appropriate game, it's D&D.

As a kid I dabbled in card games. All my friends played them, but they were leagues above me because they were dedicated to it. They learned tourney-worthy strategies from the internet, and had the cards to prove it. Those kids are never fun to play with, the mallrats, they exist in hoboworld form too.

You can't use Acid Blast Tsunami anymore, it's a banned card!
Why? Because it kills everybody' s dudes, even mine? It's the only strategy I got!
In card games, the dude with the best (aka most expensive) cards wins. Pay to win. Psycho Opal Angel lockdown! You have to discard the first card you draw every turn! Where's the fun in that?

My mom wouldn't buy me boosterpacks, and I didn't blame her. It's an expensive hobby. My cards were always from shoebox hand-me-downs, starter decks, and birthday boosters. I kludged decks together from whatever strategies I came up with on my own, and whatever cards I thought looked cool. 

The only time I had fun playing was when I played against kids in my own tax bracket, in my neighborhood. Then, our imaginations took over. It wasn't a game about good strategies and winning, it was largely about the illustrations and flavor text. I'm going to use Insect Champion because he's a freakin' shock trooper with praying mantis arms! Who cares if he's only worth 800 points and has no special attacks? We'd make up what the battles looked like. When we'd use Fissure, it was like a real crack opened in the ground and sucked our dudes down with it. We traded cards easily and freely because the cards weren't worth anything.

At school the next day, my serious friends discussed which decks they'd take to the game shop tournament on Saturday. There was a $7 entrance fee, and the grand prize was $50 store credit. I'd always lose in the first round, but I'd try anyway. There were kids in my tax bracket there too, seeing the game vicariously through the victors. One weekend I beat a kid who had never played before, I taught him the rules as we went along. I finally moved to the second round. The next kid I played knew every card by sight, and spit acid when I had to stop the game to read all card effects he was using to obliterate me.

Because my family was poor, I developed an active imagination. We had dial-up long after it was outdated, an NES from a garage sale. Some kids get nothing. My sister and I fought each other with sticks and played games with paper and dice and markers. We couldn't afford the D&D manuals, but I could look at the copies in the game store and fill in the blanks at home.

With D&D all you need is dice, paper, and pens. If you don't have dice you can use playing cards or draw lots. You don't even need a rulebook, you can easily remember the important parts yourself, and fudge the rest. You can play with different people, each of them bringing in their own character sheets from other games. Slap it together, tweak it here and there, let it work out in the wash. It's a game of pure friendship, creativity, and exploration, unhindered by a corporate middleman. It's a game that allows you to share the mind's vistas with others, in a collaborative and experiential way. I might even go as far to say that tabletop gaming (or dirt floor gaming, rather) is a living relative of oral storytelling traditions. A tradition that started with travelers and nomads and pre-literates.

Unfortunately nobody really plays it on the road. Most folks have this idea that D&D is about nerds bickering over expensive manuals. This reputation isn't unearned. The way not-me sees D&D is the way I see card games. I want to fix this, to introduce D&D to travelers or kids w no monies

Something that fits in a skull or one sheet of notebook paper. If you don't have dice draw lots or pull etched sticks out of a had.

ULTRALITE D&D

VERSION 1.2
Don't name your guy until level 3.

Roll in order: STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA

3: -3
4-5: -2
6-8: -1
9-12: 0
13-15: +1
16-17: +2
:18 +3
(this is easy to remember because 1,2,3,4,3,2,1)

Pick a class:

• Fighters (d8+CON HP. 1200 XP to level up) adds LVL to attack and damage rolls. Gets additional attacks per combat on levels 3,6,9 etc.
• Pilgrims (d6+CON HP 1500 XP to level up) can SMITE unholy for d6+wis, HEAL d6+wis, using a pool of dice equal to level. BLESS and PRAY might do things too. Gods make demands of them! Dance or lose your powers, puppet! 
• Mountebanks (d6+CON HP 1000 XP to level up) add LVL to attack and damage rolls when they Backstab in addition to the regular x2 dmg that everybody gets.  Mountebanks gets 2 skill points at start and get another +1 to spend on skills every other level. They can Save VS Dex per adventure to overrule an argument about treasure. Small weapons and bows only or can't add skill bonuses.
• Spellcasters (d4+CON HP. 1500 XP to level up) get (INT mod+level) spell points. you can represent spell points with tokens, and spells cost their level to cast. They can cast any spell they know. Spell points refresh every day if they get good sleep and time to meditate/connect to the aether. Spellcasters can smell magic or speak dragon or something. No armor.

OPTIONAL: if people bitch about races either let them just roleplay that race (ask them what being that race is like) or do race as class thusly:

• Elves (d6+CON HP, 2000 XP to level up) can cast spells, and get +1 melee OR ranged to-hit (to max +3) and +2 spell point on odd levels.  -2 to WIS saves. Good at Dead languages and Arcane technology.
• Dwarves (d6+CON HP 1500 XP to level up) get +1 to damage on odd levels. They're good at mechanics and object-knowledge. -2 CON saves. CON save to nullify incoming damage once per adventure.
• Hobbits (d6+CON HD 1200 XP to level up) get +1 ranged to-hit and and can automatically succeed at Hide in Shadows once per day. -2 DEX saves. Let them re-do a failed roll once per adventure. They can heal d6 HP to somebody once an adventure.
  
   Can you remember all that?

HOW DO YOU PLAY

You can do anything you want as long as you describe it well. Build a raft! Convince that guard by acting out the conversation! Find that trap! The DM comes up with a world and the players do things to it. Back and forth!

Your character doesn't need special skills for most things,  you do them just by playing the game! Skills are for things that can't be acted out at the table. If DM really isn't sure what's gonna result the hero just rolls 2d6 and adds some relevant ability modifier and/or skill bonus. 12+ is best, under 8 is bad, in the middle is okay. If it's against somebody else do a contested roll and extrapolate what happens. Use verbs! It's better if everybody shouts things at the same time. Toss out a -1 or -2 if stuff is really hard. If stuff is easier, or conditions are favorable, or the players have done extra work to turn things in their favor, just give it to them. Dice are for conflicts and increasing tension! If failure doesn't have a cost don't roll.

Skills are Pick locks, Hide in Shadows, Dead languages, Acrobatics, Arcane technology, Object-Knowledge, Mechanics, Climb sheer surfaces or whatever the hell you want. Skills are for things that can't be acted out at the table! Keep it under a dozen. Maybe just let the players invent a couple things they're good at and give them +1 to doing those things. You can wait until they have Names first. Mountebanks get extras, and can stack bonuses because they're good at cheating and half-assing things. Roll 2d6+modifier (stat?) Failing means something bad happens (with or without success).

This all sounds like gibberish because it's meant to be felt intuitively and half-remembered, written down on napkins, and explained in between the action. This works best if the DM poses lots of questions to the players and uses their answers instead of just describing.

SAVE OR DIEs are CON, DEX, WIS roll under. Dwarves, Hobbits and Elves are naturally good at saving VS their preferred type (get -2 to those rolls). Let humans pick a save to have a -1 in.

CRIT on natural 20, add next die size up to max damage. Max numbers explode die (roll again and add).

Carrying Capacity = STR stat. Small stuff stacks (candles/arrows to 10, coins to 100), regular stuff is 1 cap point, big stuff is 2 cap points. Really big stuff has to be roleplayed. Having extra packs or loot bags can boost that a bit, if the player tries it. Can't dig through your pack in a fight or you'll get killed. You can strap a few things to the outside of you for easy access (an extra knife, a potion, smoke bomb etc). 
If their arms are all loaded up with junk try throwing situations at them that make them abandon it instead of nitpicking about capsize ("you're all weighted down with emeralds and priceless art! you're having trouble swimming! the water's rising! what do you do--hurry!").

Weapons
Small (dirk, hand axe, throwing knife, short spear, sling) d6, $25
Martial (longsword, battleaxe, mace, pike, bow) d8 dmg $100
Heavy/slow/twohanded (claymore, warhammer, crossbow, glaive, halberd, etc) d12

quarrels can KO on a good, solid hit. Fist fights d4+STR CON damage.

AC is 10+DEX modifier+armor, max 19
melee to-hit d20+STR vs AC
ranged to-hit d20+DEX vs AC

Leather armor AC +1 $50
Chainmail AC +2 $200
Plate armor AC +4 $1000
Shield AC +1 $100, destroy to avoid damage
(Armor above Leather makes doing stuff like climbing, swimming, and casting spells hard. Save or it backfires somehow.)

Junk likes candles or a bottle of cheap wine is 1-5$. Good tools are 10-25$, expensive stuff is 50-100$+, extremely fine magic rare stuff between 200 to 1000$
Donkey $100, horse $1000, cart $200 blah blah

magic equipment does fun things and has +1 to a stat

XP from Loot is worth 1 point per $ value. Tally everybody's loot individually, let them argue over it. Get XP by paying wandering minstrils to tell your exploits, patronizing the arts, throwing redicuolous parties, donating to churches/widows/orphanages, funding enterprises or magical research, or hiring trainers to teach you skills.
Leveling up: Roll over each of your stats. Raise it by one if you make it. Add an extra HD.

Everything else:
 Monsters are just collections of d6s with attitudes.
Spells can be anything! Find a list online or make them up! You have to have two hands free or a wand/relic/open spellbook in hand to cast!
Insta-Death at zero hp! Make a new guy! You're cool if you rip up your char sheet when your dude dies.
Hirelings can be gathered by rolling dice and paying silvers! They might be jerks or nice!
Draw lots of pictures! Have colored pencils or sharpies available!

I think this is about as stripped down as it gets while still looking like D&D. No matrices, no tables. The easy parts can be memorized, with hard parts written on paper. I have no idea how it plays. I bet the classes are all kinds of unbalanced. Maybe could also say fuck it and just make the classes skills themselves (putting a point in 'Fighter' gives you +1 ATK +1 DMG! Putting a point in 'Mountebank' gives you a skill point!) How will it translate to travelers? Flail snails.