Heal ThySelf to a
HealThy Self
NowHere other than
Now Here
HealThy Self
NowHere other than
Now Here
Healing originally manifested in June 2015 as a lighthearted one-minute video posted on Facebook — a time-lapse revealing the miraculous, quiet phenomenon of human skin reconstructing itself cell by cell, day by day. Behind that video was a rigorous, patient exercise in somatic observation:
“When exactly 23 days ago I chose not to stitch, or glue, that wicked cut, I already knew that our skin regenerates itself approximately every 27 days. Other sources suggest two to three weeks. Though according to Stanford’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, ‘Every one of us completely regenerates our own skin every 7 days’.
I wanted to witness this natural process first-hand, and the best way to document the progress was to capture a photo every single day. I later added the playful music and the cross-zoom transitions for entertainment purposes.
But yeah, absolutely — our bodies are magnificent machines. I simply kept the wound clean and covered, exposing it to the open air every eight hours just to let it breathe. I applied Iodine, followed by Neosporin, then wrapped it back up. I repeated the process every day... Et voilà.
Thank you all for the comments, concerns, and suggestions.”
— Venice Beach, 2015
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Alright, with this introduction out of the way, and since my writing about world affairs and politics is usually a periodic endeavour, here is a reflective piece conjured a full decade following the jogging incident above.
A few months back on Facebook, right after viewing that old memory, it instantly became clear that this topic was far too heavy, and the writing far too spectacular (wink), to be buried inside a compilation series or even social media. An intense dissection of an entire global superpower deserves its own sovereign stage. Therefore, it only made sense that the post migrates to One Lucky Soul as a solitary, standalone monument — packed with essential expansions and archival photographs. Oh, and double the original length, because again, this is mighty ‘Murika after all: the land of the free and the home of the brave.
While in my latest retrospective analysis, Holding the Megaphone, I was passionately dissecting my own inner being and raw humanity — an exercise that violently shattered the old baseline of OLS when a single-day surge of 7.3K views eclipsed what used to take months, then weeks, to accumulate — in this continental text, the clinical scale expands. I am shifting the lens outward, putting the colossal conglomerate on my psychological L-shape couch; lower case, though. The outcome is five meticulously crafted parts:
A few months back on Facebook, right after viewing that old memory, it instantly became clear that this topic was far too heavy, and the writing far too spectacular (wink), to be buried inside a compilation series or even social media. An intense dissection of an entire global superpower deserves its own sovereign stage. Therefore, it only made sense that the post migrates to One Lucky Soul as a solitary, standalone monument — packed with essential expansions and archival photographs. Oh, and double the original length, because again, this is mighty ‘Murika after all: the land of the free and the home of the brave.
While in my latest retrospective analysis, Holding the Megaphone, I was passionately dissecting my own inner being and raw humanity — an exercise that violently shattered the old baseline of OLS when a single-day surge of 7.3K views eclipsed what used to take months, then weeks, to accumulate — in this continental text, the clinical scale expands. I am shifting the lens outward, putting the colossal conglomerate on my psychological L-shape couch; lower case, though. The outcome is five meticulously crafted parts:
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐊𝐄
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐈: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐌 𝐯𝐬. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐈𝐈: 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐄
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐕: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐗𝐇𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐕: 𝐔𝐍𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐀𝐋
With that, I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy putting it all together.
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐈: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐌 𝐯𝐬. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐈𝐈: 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐄
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐕: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐗𝐇𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐕: 𝐔𝐍𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐀𝐋
With that, I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy putting it all together.
─── ✵ ────── ✵ ────── ✵ ───
Youniversal Healing
The United States is structured differently. It functions not just as a sovereign nation, but as a rigid conglomerate — a hyper-efficient, institutionalised machine. In calling it “different”, I am naturally contrasting it against Egypt and other ancient civilisations. Not that I am particularly fond of lazy comparisons, as every place and culture retains its own unique heartbeat and charm. Yet, having spent the first three decades of my existence in my land of birth before relocating to North America for an entire decade, Egypt remained my primary frame of reference. It was the lens through which I measured what I knew — or thought I knew — against the naked, sobering realities I came to learn about the New World. Could there ever be a genuine reconciliation between the two?
As much as I utterly relished the Bohemian cadence of life in Gentrified Venice Beach, certain systemic gears in the country as a whole would often stop me in my tracks, leaving me with a silent, contemplative “Hmm”. Experiencing that society entirely as an outsider — sharing living spaces with complete strangers for months on end — allowed me to dissect the true anatomy of the American system. I suppose it was all part of the unwritten research, which the subconscious mind was engaged in without the conscious “me” thinking much about it.
You see, while the wheel of life keeps turning, you don’t sit around overthinking your present Here and Now. You simply do your best to be inspired and to live in the moment; to enjoy the apparent freedom with the beautiful women, the legal cannabis, and colourful street art.
Only when pondering certain matters by delving into the territory of the subconscious — likely years later — do the grand landscapes become clear. We tend to return to the same matters as we grow through life, only to see the truth under a brighter light, belatedly calculating the true cost of the very freedom we so eagerly chased.
The more you know yourself through direct experience, the more self-knowledge becomes the journey during which your inner truth is found and owned. This rabbit hole is a bottomless pit — an everlasting endeavour guiding the soul as it keeps spiralling closer and deeper toward its inner core. In the words of Carl Jung, “We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life”.
Now that a full decade has passed since that Ten-Year Trip, it is high time to articulate the true sentiments about one profoundly thrilling and chaotic chapter of my adult life. The following is a retrospective look sparked by a visceral incident that took place on the streets of Los Angeles — a moment some of my longtime readers might still remember.
As much as I utterly relished the Bohemian cadence of life in Gentrified Venice Beach, certain systemic gears in the country as a whole would often stop me in my tracks, leaving me with a silent, contemplative “Hmm”. Experiencing that society entirely as an outsider — sharing living spaces with complete strangers for months on end — allowed me to dissect the true anatomy of the American system. I suppose it was all part of the unwritten research, which the subconscious mind was engaged in without the conscious “me” thinking much about it.
You see, while the wheel of life keeps turning, you don’t sit around overthinking your present Here and Now. You simply do your best to be inspired and to live in the moment; to enjoy the apparent freedom with the beautiful women, the legal cannabis, and colourful street art.
Only when pondering certain matters by delving into the territory of the subconscious — likely years later — do the grand landscapes become clear. We tend to return to the same matters as we grow through life, only to see the truth under a brighter light, belatedly calculating the true cost of the very freedom we so eagerly chased.
The more you know yourself through direct experience, the more self-knowledge becomes the journey during which your inner truth is found and owned. This rabbit hole is a bottomless pit — an everlasting endeavour guiding the soul as it keeps spiralling closer and deeper toward its inner core. In the words of Carl Jung, “We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life”.
Now that a full decade has passed since that Ten-Year Trip, it is high time to articulate the true sentiments about one profoundly thrilling and chaotic chapter of my adult life. The following is a retrospective look sparked by a visceral incident that took place on the streets of Los Angeles — a moment some of my longtime readers might still remember.
 |
| Lady the adorable and certainly neurotic Shiba Inu in our backyard — Westminster Ave. in Venice Beach, March 2015 |
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐊𝐄
While jogging one early morning from the Venice Boardwalk to Rose Ave by Santa Monica, I was accompanied by Lady the Shiba Inu — who belonged to the Asian bungalow mate from New York. Mid-stride, I happened to slip and lose my footing. In a frantic split-second reflex, my body instinctively reached out to grab a metal fence to my right. Unfortunately, the fence was crowned with sharp, spiky iron endings which penetrated my right palm. Ugh.
The blood was dripping like madness in the spring. Looking around, I spotted a pharmacy right across on Main St. by the famous “Ballerina Clown” public art. Great! — or so I naively thought. Leading the doggo inside, I walked to the counter and politely requested any basic form of first-aid care, even just some tissues to stem the flow. I was holding my hand up in a rather dramatic fashion, just so they could get an idea of the severity of the wound. I wanted to show that while I was not shot, I was indeed severely cut — maybe a solid 4 out of 10 on their clinical pain metrics.
To my utter astonishment, however, the employees working behind the counter looked at my heavily bleeding palm with total, nonplussed indifference.
“We can’t help you here,” I was told.
The words were delivered with a cold, mechanised finality that lacked basic human empathy, warmth, or an ounce of professional “care”. To my ears, that indifferent tone sounded quite alien and out of place — like a glitch in the matrix one is not supposed to encounter inside a health facility, where attention is needed most. Isn’t this a freaking pharmacy?, I wondered to myself, stunned by the sterile apathy.
Recognising that the bleeding wasn’t going to wait for a corporate policy shift, I took Lady and walked out. Nearby, I spotted a small eatery and bar that, by some stroke of luck, was open at 8:00 AM. I walked inside to try my luck with everyday citizens. The staff there didn’t hesitate for a second; they pointed me toward the restrooms with genuine, human concern. Ahhhh. The running tap water was instantly soothing, and I used a thick wad of industrial toilet paper to tightly bind the injury. It was only there, standing under the bathroom light, that I realised the true depth and severity of the laceration — the inner somatic layers of the skin were fully visible. Aouch.
On a lighter note, When Lady Ran Away is an article that followed in that same 2015 summer about just that. Imagine losing a dog that is NOT yours, who suddenly goes through a frantic fit and starts sprinting down the beach like there is no tomorrow. Fortunately, that story had a happy ending.
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| Two days following the precognitive bike accident when everywhere was swollen — May 2015 |
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐈: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐌 𝐯𝐬. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅
Back home, I knew I wasn’t going back to the Emergency Room. I had zero desire to pay another $340 (plus meds) out of pocket to the hospital establishment, or to spend hours convincing the Medicaid insurance operators that I was indeed low-income and sufficiently poor just for them to authorise $430+ to clean a wound and hand me a few generic Vicodins. My scepticism was grounded in a brutal accident that had occurred just two weeks prior, when a car ran me over while I was riding my bicycle
Truth is, after that crash, I had no plans to visit any hospitals. But when I shared the graphic, revealing photos of the wreckage online, a crowd of friends — including a couple of nurses — explicitly warned me that I needed to get the trauma checked. So I acquiesced to the collective.
The uncanny, metaphysical twist to that first bicycle story is that I had actually previewed the accident in a vivid, precognitive dream a week or two before it happened. Those types of predictive visions were the initial spark that led me to investigate the unconscious mind, eventually culminating in my book. You can read the full breakdown here on One Lucky Soul in Dreaming Of The Accident Before It Happened, and its less personal companion, Dreaming That The Buddha Was Not Fat.
Faced with a predatory, super-commercialised healthcare machine this second time around, my alternative was beautifully simple: Heal Thyself. I dived headfirst into research on cellular regeneration and came to learn some truly phenomenal, unconditioned feats about the human body. Two to three weeks seemed like a perfectly reasonable timeline to personally nurse an iron-spike laceration back to health.
Later that day, I called my L.A doctor uncle, Dr. Abdel Fattah el Bitash, who instructed me to walk to the nearest pharmacy and ring him back once there. I stepped inside, dialled his number, and he immediately asked to speak directly to the pharmacist standing behind the thick, bullet-resistant glass. Uh-huh. If you know anything about the high-velocity intersection of drugs, weapons, and street crime in the United States, you know that specialised ballistic glass is a necessary structural reality across the country — and inside the inner rings of L.A specifically, of course.
I watched through the glass as he gave the corporate lab coat the names of a certain cream and a handful of non-narcotic pills — which I purchased, yet probably never ended up taking. And that was that for a first eventful day.
Since my executive choice was to recover unaided by the establishment, I documented the daily cellular reconstruction by taking a single snapshot of my open palm every day. That short video was the ultimate outcome. For the featured master collage at the top of this article, compiled a full decade later in 2026, those same original photos were stitched together.
Our bodies are sheer miraculous wonders, by the way.
And it was right there, sitting in the heavy afterglow of that corporate apathy, that my visceral reflection Opiated Then Hatin’ It came to being.
Truth is, after that crash, I had no plans to visit any hospitals. But when I shared the graphic, revealing photos of the wreckage online, a crowd of friends — including a couple of nurses — explicitly warned me that I needed to get the trauma checked. So I acquiesced to the collective.
The uncanny, metaphysical twist to that first bicycle story is that I had actually previewed the accident in a vivid, precognitive dream a week or two before it happened. Those types of predictive visions were the initial spark that led me to investigate the unconscious mind, eventually culminating in my book. You can read the full breakdown here on One Lucky Soul in Dreaming Of The Accident Before It Happened, and its less personal companion, Dreaming That The Buddha Was Not Fat.
Faced with a predatory, super-commercialised healthcare machine this second time around, my alternative was beautifully simple: Heal Thyself. I dived headfirst into research on cellular regeneration and came to learn some truly phenomenal, unconditioned feats about the human body. Two to three weeks seemed like a perfectly reasonable timeline to personally nurse an iron-spike laceration back to health.
Later that day, I called my L.A doctor uncle, Dr. Abdel Fattah el Bitash, who instructed me to walk to the nearest pharmacy and ring him back once there. I stepped inside, dialled his number, and he immediately asked to speak directly to the pharmacist standing behind the thick, bullet-resistant glass. Uh-huh. If you know anything about the high-velocity intersection of drugs, weapons, and street crime in the United States, you know that specialised ballistic glass is a necessary structural reality across the country — and inside the inner rings of L.A specifically, of course.
I watched through the glass as he gave the corporate lab coat the names of a certain cream and a handful of non-narcotic pills — which I purchased, yet probably never ended up taking. And that was that for a first eventful day.
Since my executive choice was to recover unaided by the establishment, I documented the daily cellular reconstruction by taking a single snapshot of my open palm every day. That short video was the ultimate outcome. For the featured master collage at the top of this article, compiled a full decade later in 2026, those same original photos were stitched together.
Our bodies are sheer miraculous wonders, by the way.
And it was right there, sitting in the heavy afterglow of that corporate apathy, that my visceral reflection Opiated Then Hatin’ It came to being.
─── ✵ ────── ✵ ────── ✵ ───
 |
| Bloody aftermath of the precognitive bike accident I had dreamed of |
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐈𝐈: 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐄
At the time, silly me joked online that the only daily habit affected by the split palm was masturbation. Ha-ha. But the unvarnished reality was far more grounding: It halted my drumming. Despite the throbbing hand, I still migrated to the Venice Beach Drum Circle for the following two or three weekends yet unburdened by the heavy-ass instrument, choosing instead to simply dance and to Be. It turned out to be a healthy, reflective change of pace before eventually resuming my djembefola role.
It was during those rhythmic weekend gatherings that I learned from community friends and a few local homeless acquaintances that right on Rose Avenue — a block away from where the iron spike had pierced my skin — there sat a non-profit clinic that treated individuals free of charge. The only caveat was that a drop-in meant enduring a long, standard waiting line. Discovering that oasis of solidarity was deeply uplifting. Fortunately, that fence encounter proved to be my second and final physical mishap in the neighbourhood.
Still, the underlying question remained stuck in my mental gears: Why can minor wounds not be taken care of inside an American pharmacy?
Now, if you know anything about Egypt, it is that this clinical pharmacy scenario would never occur anywhere across the land. A stranger walking in with a bloody hand is instantly treated as a brother; in “civilised” America, he is treated strictly as a legal liability.
If you approach any of the everyday, working-class people on an Egyptian street with a bleeding injury, or flag them down for a blown-out tire, they will halt their entire day to give you their undivided attention. More often than not, these absolute strangers will provide water to clean your wound, hand you tissues, or actively sweat alongside you to change that tire. There is a certain unspoken yet felt social kinship woven between the population that can instantly restore your fractured faith in humanity. I hear India is similar.
Could this baseline empathy be related to the fact that these people share a continuous, unbroken history stretching back over 6,000 years? Perhaps, across millennia, communities subconsciously integrated the immense evolutionary benefits of mutual kindness and compassion — benefits that preserve both the individual soul and the collective tribe. It operates as a form of ancestral wisdom, an unconditioned cultural script that somehow came to be ingrained directly into the population’s DNA, permanently encoded within their genome.
In sharp contrast, the New World felt increasingly defined by a feverish, state-sanctioned paranoia. The same systemic gears that turned a bleeding pedestrian into a corporate liability were simultaneously fuelling an undercurrent of institutional violence right on the Boardwalk. It was a bizarre duality: Dancing on the sand by day, while watching police cruisers prowl the coastline by night, headlights blinding, enforcing a sterile order through state-sponsored intimidation.
What remains remarkable is how this Big Brother “police state” became part of the norm, which people got used. It took an outsider to question if living in such atmosphere is natural or even healthy.
Heck, for my first two years there, every single Saturday and Sunday at sundown, these “bobbies” — or what the old-fashioned crowd would call the “Blue Meanies” — would undignifyingly contour the Venice Beach Drum Circle with their flashing tactical vehicles like we were a pack of high-risk criminals. As seen in the two photos below — the second captured alongside my remarkably vibrant friend David Healey, a legendary Venice Beach icon, a decorated Vietnam War combat veteran — it was surreal to witness mature adults, peacefully locked into a musical rhythm, being systematically forced to pack up their instruments and clear the beach by the authorities. Boo-hoo.
I actually initiated a few direct conversations with some of the officers on the sand about this aggressive sunset policy, simply because my pattern-recognition engine wanted to learn the mechanics behind the curtain. The official answers changed with the wind and remained predictably ambiguous. Old-timers, like Uncle Andy, who had been attending the circle since the 1960s explained to me that the friction ran deep; a decade prior, the perimeter faced genuine disruption from local gangs who frequently caused fights at the gatherings — some stabbing incidences among criminal acts. The tactical police presence was the lingering hangover of those old wars.
There was a whole lot to uncover, and it came through a documentary about the history of the VBDC that I helped shoot. Old-timers like uncle Andy, Lonnie Boyd Jones Sr., and Edward and Linda Tillmon got to share their endearing memories about one historical happening. According to them, they mainly agreed to be interviewed because of the cool relationship we shared. The doc was shot by Alex Mannone and produced by Steve Angel — yet for some reason it has not yet seen the light.
Thankfully, a slow, evolutionary trust was born across my time there; the relationship kept improving until the authorities stopped checking on us entirely. By the time the latest instalment of my Attempting to Bridge the Gap Between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ series, titled Evolution, went live in 2018, that systematic infantilisation had finally broken down. Today, my old friends from the coast post videos of fire dancers freely enjoying the circle well into the night. A great time for Freedom.
The Venice Beach Drum Circle is the ultimate counterculture.
It was during those rhythmic weekend gatherings that I learned from community friends and a few local homeless acquaintances that right on Rose Avenue — a block away from where the iron spike had pierced my skin — there sat a non-profit clinic that treated individuals free of charge. The only caveat was that a drop-in meant enduring a long, standard waiting line. Discovering that oasis of solidarity was deeply uplifting. Fortunately, that fence encounter proved to be my second and final physical mishap in the neighbourhood.
Still, the underlying question remained stuck in my mental gears: Why can minor wounds not be taken care of inside an American pharmacy?
Now, if you know anything about Egypt, it is that this clinical pharmacy scenario would never occur anywhere across the land. A stranger walking in with a bloody hand is instantly treated as a brother; in “civilised” America, he is treated strictly as a legal liability.
If you approach any of the everyday, working-class people on an Egyptian street with a bleeding injury, or flag them down for a blown-out tire, they will halt their entire day to give you their undivided attention. More often than not, these absolute strangers will provide water to clean your wound, hand you tissues, or actively sweat alongside you to change that tire. There is a certain unspoken yet felt social kinship woven between the population that can instantly restore your fractured faith in humanity. I hear India is similar.
Could this baseline empathy be related to the fact that these people share a continuous, unbroken history stretching back over 6,000 years? Perhaps, across millennia, communities subconsciously integrated the immense evolutionary benefits of mutual kindness and compassion — benefits that preserve both the individual soul and the collective tribe. It operates as a form of ancestral wisdom, an unconditioned cultural script that somehow came to be ingrained directly into the population’s DNA, permanently encoded within their genome.
In sharp contrast, the New World felt increasingly defined by a feverish, state-sanctioned paranoia. The same systemic gears that turned a bleeding pedestrian into a corporate liability were simultaneously fuelling an undercurrent of institutional violence right on the Boardwalk. It was a bizarre duality: Dancing on the sand by day, while watching police cruisers prowl the coastline by night, headlights blinding, enforcing a sterile order through state-sponsored intimidation.
What remains remarkable is how this Big Brother “police state” became part of the norm, which people got used. It took an outsider to question if living in such atmosphere is natural or even healthy.
Heck, for my first two years there, every single Saturday and Sunday at sundown, these “bobbies” — or what the old-fashioned crowd would call the “Blue Meanies” — would undignifyingly contour the Venice Beach Drum Circle with their flashing tactical vehicles like we were a pack of high-risk criminals. As seen in the two photos below — the second captured alongside my remarkably vibrant friend David Healey, a legendary Venice Beach icon, a decorated Vietnam War combat veteran — it was surreal to witness mature adults, peacefully locked into a musical rhythm, being systematically forced to pack up their instruments and clear the beach by the authorities. Boo-hoo.
I actually initiated a few direct conversations with some of the officers on the sand about this aggressive sunset policy, simply because my pattern-recognition engine wanted to learn the mechanics behind the curtain. The official answers changed with the wind and remained predictably ambiguous. Old-timers, like Uncle Andy, who had been attending the circle since the 1960s explained to me that the friction ran deep; a decade prior, the perimeter faced genuine disruption from local gangs who frequently caused fights at the gatherings — some stabbing incidences among criminal acts. The tactical police presence was the lingering hangover of those old wars.
There was a whole lot to uncover, and it came through a documentary about the history of the VBDC that I helped shoot. Old-timers like uncle Andy, Lonnie Boyd Jones Sr., and Edward and Linda Tillmon got to share their endearing memories about one historical happening. According to them, they mainly agreed to be interviewed because of the cool relationship we shared. The doc was shot by Alex Mannone and produced by Steve Angel — yet for some reason it has not yet seen the light.
Thankfully, a slow, evolutionary trust was born across my time there; the relationship kept improving until the authorities stopped checking on us entirely. By the time the latest instalment of my Attempting to Bridge the Gap Between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ series, titled Evolution, went live in 2018, that systematic infantilisation had finally broken down. Today, my old friends from the coast post videos of fire dancers freely enjoying the circle well into the night. A great time for Freedom.
The Venice Beach Drum Circle is the ultimate counterculture.
─── ✵ ────── ✵ ────── ✵ ───
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| “Shoot The Shooters” — the Venice Beach Drum Circle, January 2015 |
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈𝐕: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐄𝐗𝐇𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍
The thing is, before flags, borders, books, and modern civilisations, humans are essentially all consanguineous brothers and sisters. We emerged from the same space-time anomaly and we will inevitably dissolve back into the same space-time anomaly. Why, then, can’t we navigate the world with that simple baseline in mind? Why can’t we love one another and coexist?
In “civilised” America, however, there exists a hyper-complex grid of laws, rules, and corporate regulations, bound to a staggering vortex of money — all considerably novel and co-dependant systems which haven’t had the luxury of being tested in the historical long run. This total political and economic control of the establishment over almost all aspects of existence tends to systematically infantilise the population. By claiming it acts in the people’s best interests, the machine invites its citizens to become apathetic, numb, and fundamentally disconnected from their core humanity — significantly dependent on the state apparatus for their survival.
The education system seems to likewise be engineered to dumb down the majority of the population, manufacturing automated cogs who are far easier to control, predict, and deploy. A strange case of anti-intellectualism. Then there is the massive prison system — a thriving, corporate, for-profit business enterprise that is an integral part of one outrageous mega-plan to keep the wheel grinding toward continuous, mechanical labour and everlasting, hollow progress. Pff. Oftentimes, it was this piercing quote by Bukowski that would come visit my mind’s eye: “Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colours.”
Truth is, beyond the illusory Hollywood-like facade portraying the “Leaders of the Free World”, the vain deep-seated delusion of American exceptionalism, and the intolerable superiority as well as inferiority complexes, a significant portion of Americans seem disconnected from their very selves and their immediate environment, desensitised to a rather alarming degree. No one, you see, wants to get fired, sued, incarcerated, or shot; that is a common, high-alert daily reality in the land of opportunity. The authorities there operate like an opportunistic, predatory capitalist enterprise.
Yet because this bastardised version of capitalism is unregulated, the transactional ethos is to maximise profit within the bounds of the laws, rules, regulations while totally sidelining ethics; all the while using people as mere income-generating tools. That is precisely what allows Big Pharma CEOs to legally and unjustifiably raise drug prices by 1500%.
Therefore, being obedient and following bureaucratic orders while disregarding fellow earthlings, who may be bleeding and needing a little help, is treated as a necessary survival mechanism. And that diagnosis is coming from a guy who once studied psychology at UCLA — and later ended up inside one of the New World's actual Jails during his time in North America. Why spend six days in jail? For having an alleged half a drink over the legal limit in my blood while driving perfectly fine.
On the other hand, there are those who choose not to abide by the suffocating laws and rigid structures, wilily circumnavigating them. As the world has come to learn, these violators operate on all tiers of the social hierarchy, found running corrupt insurance conglomerates and manipulating behemoth banking institutions. In fact, the entire financial matrix is mired in institutionalised corruption — propagated by elites who remain cosy with the decision-makers in charge while the public suffers the fallout. When you bend the rules, the rules bend.
The structural result of this hustle culture? Crippling generational poverty, violent street crime, a roaring contraband economy, and devastating drug epidemics. The system is so flawed that an entire legendary city can actually go bankrupt — as I was flabbergasted to learn and witness first-hand when exploring the post-industrial ruins of Detroit.
You see the profound psychosocial and financial codependency between the various branches of the system? Student loans, which certainly play a role in the anti-intellectualism vibe, as well as lifelong mortgages are the integral binding handcuffs of the same control equation. Constant, cancerous economic growth. Pfff. That is the when civilisations begin to de-evolve before eventually collapsing under their own weight.
Speaking of healing, perhaps the collective generational psyche of the country has simply been utterly exhausted and alienated through 250 short years of brutal, relentless, and unceasing wars with the rest of the world. The domestic population has been left to choke on the severe psychosocial repercussions of historical slavery and indigenous genocide — manifesting as sprawling homelessness, systemic poverty, chronic crime, untamed drug epidemics, routine school shootings, and widespread mental health crises defined by mass anxiety and chronic neuroticism. The deep national and generational traumas continuously feed on such a high-velocity history.
In verifiable data, the United States, which consists of a mere five percent of the world’s population, consumes a staggering 80 percent of the planet’s prescription drugs. How about that for one telling and mind-boggling fact! It’s high time, Cymbaline.
In “civilised” America, however, there exists a hyper-complex grid of laws, rules, and corporate regulations, bound to a staggering vortex of money — all considerably novel and co-dependant systems which haven’t had the luxury of being tested in the historical long run. This total political and economic control of the establishment over almost all aspects of existence tends to systematically infantilise the population. By claiming it acts in the people’s best interests, the machine invites its citizens to become apathetic, numb, and fundamentally disconnected from their core humanity — significantly dependent on the state apparatus for their survival.
The education system seems to likewise be engineered to dumb down the majority of the population, manufacturing automated cogs who are far easier to control, predict, and deploy. A strange case of anti-intellectualism. Then there is the massive prison system — a thriving, corporate, for-profit business enterprise that is an integral part of one outrageous mega-plan to keep the wheel grinding toward continuous, mechanical labour and everlasting, hollow progress. Pff. Oftentimes, it was this piercing quote by Bukowski that would come visit my mind’s eye: “Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colours.”
Truth is, beyond the illusory Hollywood-like facade portraying the “Leaders of the Free World”, the vain deep-seated delusion of American exceptionalism, and the intolerable superiority as well as inferiority complexes, a significant portion of Americans seem disconnected from their very selves and their immediate environment, desensitised to a rather alarming degree. No one, you see, wants to get fired, sued, incarcerated, or shot; that is a common, high-alert daily reality in the land of opportunity. The authorities there operate like an opportunistic, predatory capitalist enterprise.
Yet because this bastardised version of capitalism is unregulated, the transactional ethos is to maximise profit within the bounds of the laws, rules, regulations while totally sidelining ethics; all the while using people as mere income-generating tools. That is precisely what allows Big Pharma CEOs to legally and unjustifiably raise drug prices by 1500%.
Therefore, being obedient and following bureaucratic orders while disregarding fellow earthlings, who may be bleeding and needing a little help, is treated as a necessary survival mechanism. And that diagnosis is coming from a guy who once studied psychology at UCLA — and later ended up inside one of the New World's actual Jails during his time in North America. Why spend six days in jail? For having an alleged half a drink over the legal limit in my blood while driving perfectly fine.
On the other hand, there are those who choose not to abide by the suffocating laws and rigid structures, wilily circumnavigating them. As the world has come to learn, these violators operate on all tiers of the social hierarchy, found running corrupt insurance conglomerates and manipulating behemoth banking institutions. In fact, the entire financial matrix is mired in institutionalised corruption — propagated by elites who remain cosy with the decision-makers in charge while the public suffers the fallout. When you bend the rules, the rules bend.
The structural result of this hustle culture? Crippling generational poverty, violent street crime, a roaring contraband economy, and devastating drug epidemics. The system is so flawed that an entire legendary city can actually go bankrupt — as I was flabbergasted to learn and witness first-hand when exploring the post-industrial ruins of Detroit.
You see the profound psychosocial and financial codependency between the various branches of the system? Student loans, which certainly play a role in the anti-intellectualism vibe, as well as lifelong mortgages are the integral binding handcuffs of the same control equation. Constant, cancerous economic growth. Pfff. That is the when civilisations begin to de-evolve before eventually collapsing under their own weight.
Speaking of healing, perhaps the collective generational psyche of the country has simply been utterly exhausted and alienated through 250 short years of brutal, relentless, and unceasing wars with the rest of the world. The domestic population has been left to choke on the severe psychosocial repercussions of historical slavery and indigenous genocide — manifesting as sprawling homelessness, systemic poverty, chronic crime, untamed drug epidemics, routine school shootings, and widespread mental health crises defined by mass anxiety and chronic neuroticism. The deep national and generational traumas continuously feed on such a high-velocity history.
In verifiable data, the United States, which consists of a mere five percent of the world’s population, consumes a staggering 80 percent of the planet’s prescription drugs. How about that for one telling and mind-boggling fact! It’s high time, Cymbaline.
─── ✵ ────── ✵ ────── ✵ ───
 |
| Disrupting the perimeter with the legendary photographer and Vietnam combat vet David Healey, Kat, Monique, and Freddy while the LAPD locks down the sunset — VBDC, 2016 |
Fast-forward a decade later: Refusing to let age dim his fire, Dave was still out in the streets of Los Angeles with his camera lens, fearlessly documenting the tightening grip of the state until the system’s blunt force literally trampled him at a No King protest in June 2025. It is a sobering testament to how the empire treats its own elders and veterans in their homeland — a reality documented by his daughter on Instagram at @mydadtakespictures and one that I unravelled further in this Facebook Tribute to my unbreakable brother.
For the vibrant visual chronicle of this bohemian battle ground across the decade, explore the master galleries and all the gloriously eclectic characters who blessed my lens.
📸 A Year at the Venice Beach Drum Circle in Photos (2014-’15)
📸 Another Year at the Venice Beach Drum Circle in Photos & Videos (2016-’17)
📸 One More Year at the Venice Beach Drum Circle in Photos & Videos (2017-’18)
─── ✵ ────── ✵ ────── ✵ ───
 |
| “Bullying Some Children”: Twenty officers deploying an excessive show of force over an alleged stolen bag of chips. Note the child on the far right in a backpack who couldn't be more than five or six years old — Venice Beach, May 2016. |
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐕: 𝐔𝐍𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐀𝐋
The United States is so new, it felt it had no other option to survive than to become the bully police of the world — who always happens to know The One Correct Way. There was a lot of time to practice fighting, it seems there was no way it could stop. For too many people depend on the military industrial complex: Wage a war against another nation, order people to work on achieving the objectives, then make exorbitant amounts of money while claiming to fix the damages it had created. Isn’t that what has been going on? Inexcusable absurdity.
Truthfully, too much aggression, violence, bloodshed took place in such a short time across the Wild West, that it may be natural for [some] people to escape, shut off, dissociate, and disconnect in an effort to gain some inner peace — maybe also a certain degree of control and autonomy over their lives. And escape, my Friends, can be a bitch. For it hides the very problem rather than face it.
If you are fairly sensitive and aware enough, you may take notice there is a certain invasive feeling of tension and distrust in the atmosphere. Especially when daring to leave the safety of the comfort zone and explore the entire country, there is a kind of palpable, polarising rift looming on the horizons. Not only among different segments of the population, but among people in general — depending on ideological and political differences. The “Us and Them” mentality thrives there.
Republicans, Democrats; Liberals, Conservatives; Left, Right; Woke, Anti-Woke; Pro-this, Anti-that; North, South; East, West; White, Black, Brown; Red, Blue. Just limiting, tribal labels they end up psychologically associating with and emotionally identifying with.
As a natural consequence, the ceaseless friction between all these fragmented segments of a single nation — the in-groups versus the out-groups — leads to extreme, far-reaching political and cultural polarisation.
The duality of this mode of existence inherently separates people, from each other and from their own humanity, isolating them. But it also creates News to capitalise on; again, money is the name of the game — the god. Even on social media, any observer would feel The Great Divide in the overall vibration of the country.
Throughout those years in Venice Beach, I even found myself using my presence and camera to politely fight back on the ground. Like the evening I stood up to two officers about to pull on rubber gloves to strip-search a lone 20-year-old girl sitting on the sand for — wait for it — smoking a cigarette, a normal tobacco cigarette. Yep, that astounding level of bullying and harassment was a frequent happening, which I am continuously reminded of through Facebook memories like this one. It was a muscle-flexing confrontation I recorded live in this 2017 Post. As mentioned, deep down inside, cops are humans after all, but once you refuse to feed their fear loops, there is almost always a way around the system.
But with so many enticing Weapons of Mass Distraction like the media, drugs, big sport extravaganzas — all run like ruthless business conglomerates, of course — most citizens don’t give the matter much attention. For there is neither time nor energy left to pause and reflect, certainly not enough for The People to unite and revolt. The average person doesn’t even have the time nor enough money to travel and cultivate themselves. My 2015 piece Why Americans Don’t Travel Much tackles the core of this socio-economic trap.
Yet America is not L.A., or California. Far from it. Reading about the state of a country from afar is one thing, but it is a drastically different level of insight to actually live there for an entire decade. Uniquely so — one ought to add — I navigated that society strictly as an outsider. I never officially joined. Neither did I buy into the plastic American Dream charade, nor the polished “Canadian Experience” before it. I could see straight through the exploitive setup from day one. To my eyes, it did not look appealing — certainly not healthy.
To those who are desperate enough in their own home countries, immigration may look like a solution. But that blind, generational spell is breaking; even the most desperate are beginning to see through the gears of the machine.
All this, by the way, is not to say that such “Divide and Conquer” actuality is not found elsewhere. Far from it. Neither is it to say that Egypt has it all together or is doing fine and dandy under military rule. It is not; there is a whole other set of systemic issues, as is the case with other nations.
Since I have lived across both, what is being discussed herein is the psychosocial relationships in the U.S. from my own honest, unembellished perspective. To truly measure these two distinct worlds without bias meant purging my framework of the old, inherited colonial conditioning and programming — a lifelong psychological unlearning I neatly mapped out in The “Foreigner Complex”: From Saudi Arabia to South of France — aka [ عقدة الخواجة ] “Okdat el Khawaga”, recently joining One Lucky Soul on Early Memories Never Worded: The Subconscious Chronicles #2.
Also, so as not to generalise, we must add that on the other hand, there equally exist kind, decent Americans with healthy, unconditioned values who would gladly help a stranger. Sometimes found far away from the buzz of the big busy cities, but they are around. I myself have befriended some pretty cool spirits from radically diverse ages and backgrounds, many of whom I remain in close contact with.
Ironically, despite a lifetime of entrenched anti-establishment views and writings, as well as a general organic distaste for authority and policing, I even befriended an LAPD officer through the VBDC.
Perhaps this frequency is embedded in the bloodline. After all, long before assuming his diplomatic ambassadorial role, my maternal grandfather was a soldier leading the secret police in Egypt when it stood as a kingdom — one of only six elite officers holding command over the entire territory under El Kesm el Makhsous; essentially, the Egyptian FBI of the 1930s and 40s. The man was also the head of the national Interpol office.
So whether consciously or not, it was likely an effort to prove to my own antenna that, beyond the mere uniform, there is still some raw humanity left in these enforcers. And indeed there was. The copper friend from Attempting to Bridge the Gap Between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: Officer Roberts ended up showing my article to his mother, who apparently thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Despite all this cauchemardesque reality clinically dissected herein, I am telling you, Humanity still breathes in the cracks.
Truthfully, too much aggression, violence, bloodshed took place in such a short time across the Wild West, that it may be natural for [some] people to escape, shut off, dissociate, and disconnect in an effort to gain some inner peace — maybe also a certain degree of control and autonomy over their lives. And escape, my Friends, can be a bitch. For it hides the very problem rather than face it.
If you are fairly sensitive and aware enough, you may take notice there is a certain invasive feeling of tension and distrust in the atmosphere. Especially when daring to leave the safety of the comfort zone and explore the entire country, there is a kind of palpable, polarising rift looming on the horizons. Not only among different segments of the population, but among people in general — depending on ideological and political differences. The “Us and Them” mentality thrives there.
Republicans, Democrats; Liberals, Conservatives; Left, Right; Woke, Anti-Woke; Pro-this, Anti-that; North, South; East, West; White, Black, Brown; Red, Blue. Just limiting, tribal labels they end up psychologically associating with and emotionally identifying with.
As a natural consequence, the ceaseless friction between all these fragmented segments of a single nation — the in-groups versus the out-groups — leads to extreme, far-reaching political and cultural polarisation.
The duality of this mode of existence inherently separates people, from each other and from their own humanity, isolating them. But it also creates News to capitalise on; again, money is the name of the game — the god. Even on social media, any observer would feel The Great Divide in the overall vibration of the country.
Throughout those years in Venice Beach, I even found myself using my presence and camera to politely fight back on the ground. Like the evening I stood up to two officers about to pull on rubber gloves to strip-search a lone 20-year-old girl sitting on the sand for — wait for it — smoking a cigarette, a normal tobacco cigarette. Yep, that astounding level of bullying and harassment was a frequent happening, which I am continuously reminded of through Facebook memories like this one. It was a muscle-flexing confrontation I recorded live in this 2017 Post. As mentioned, deep down inside, cops are humans after all, but once you refuse to feed their fear loops, there is almost always a way around the system.
But with so many enticing Weapons of Mass Distraction like the media, drugs, big sport extravaganzas — all run like ruthless business conglomerates, of course — most citizens don’t give the matter much attention. For there is neither time nor energy left to pause and reflect, certainly not enough for The People to unite and revolt. The average person doesn’t even have the time nor enough money to travel and cultivate themselves. My 2015 piece Why Americans Don’t Travel Much tackles the core of this socio-economic trap.
Yet America is not L.A., or California. Far from it. Reading about the state of a country from afar is one thing, but it is a drastically different level of insight to actually live there for an entire decade. Uniquely so — one ought to add — I navigated that society strictly as an outsider. I never officially joined. Neither did I buy into the plastic American Dream charade, nor the polished “Canadian Experience” before it. I could see straight through the exploitive setup from day one. To my eyes, it did not look appealing — certainly not healthy.
To those who are desperate enough in their own home countries, immigration may look like a solution. But that blind, generational spell is breaking; even the most desperate are beginning to see through the gears of the machine.
All this, by the way, is not to say that such “Divide and Conquer” actuality is not found elsewhere. Far from it. Neither is it to say that Egypt has it all together or is doing fine and dandy under military rule. It is not; there is a whole other set of systemic issues, as is the case with other nations.
Since I have lived across both, what is being discussed herein is the psychosocial relationships in the U.S. from my own honest, unembellished perspective. To truly measure these two distinct worlds without bias meant purging my framework of the old, inherited colonial conditioning and programming — a lifelong psychological unlearning I neatly mapped out in The “Foreigner Complex”: From Saudi Arabia to South of France — aka [ عقدة الخواجة ] “Okdat el Khawaga”, recently joining One Lucky Soul on Early Memories Never Worded: The Subconscious Chronicles #2.
Also, so as not to generalise, we must add that on the other hand, there equally exist kind, decent Americans with healthy, unconditioned values who would gladly help a stranger. Sometimes found far away from the buzz of the big busy cities, but they are around. I myself have befriended some pretty cool spirits from radically diverse ages and backgrounds, many of whom I remain in close contact with.
Ironically, despite a lifetime of entrenched anti-establishment views and writings, as well as a general organic distaste for authority and policing, I even befriended an LAPD officer through the VBDC.
Perhaps this frequency is embedded in the bloodline. After all, long before assuming his diplomatic ambassadorial role, my maternal grandfather was a soldier leading the secret police in Egypt when it stood as a kingdom — one of only six elite officers holding command over the entire territory under El Kesm el Makhsous; essentially, the Egyptian FBI of the 1930s and 40s. The man was also the head of the national Interpol office.
So whether consciously or not, it was likely an effort to prove to my own antenna that, beyond the mere uniform, there is still some raw humanity left in these enforcers. And indeed there was. The copper friend from Attempting to Bridge the Gap Between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: Officer Roberts ended up showing my article to his mother, who apparently thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Despite all this cauchemardesque reality clinically dissected herein, I am telling you, Humanity still breathes in the cracks.
 |
| You know the circle is kicking ass when you catch the LAPD standing out of their vehicle to take photos & videos of us. Sometimes even they would wave from all the way up in their choppers during the occasional cruise. Also shown are Linda Tillmon on the far left, and on the right is Oliver Rossberg checking his camera to shoot Steve Engel in the colourful hat, then Eddy on the far right — July 2016 |
Naturally, I do feel for them — my cousins and my friends — for having to navigate this loony bin, currently reaching the highest levels of leadership in government. Of course, navigating this landscape today is vastly different from the reality faced by the first generations who immigrated in the 1960s and even 80s. Back then, an analogue world without the internet kept the underlying structure hidden, allowing them to carve out decent, stable lives within the system.
Yet today, one clearly acknowledges it’s a tragic waste of natural wealth and human potential, because these spellbindingly beautiful lands have so much to offer. The system is just stuck in a rifting quagmire of extensive policies, cold money generation, and the cancerous idea of constant growth and the mythical one of “success” and “progress”.
But it’s the population that actually suffers the consequences, the very people, not the corporate establishment, nor its Federal Reserve, nor the ones pulling the levers of charge... of course.
Hopefully, things will change soon, because the atmosphere cannot get any more polarised. During my travels, I saw the nightmarish reality hidden underneath the polished marquee — the systemic poverty, the sprawling homelessness, the devastating drug epidemics, and the legal arms that turn the country into a ticking time bomb.
Reflecting on these eventful years later from the peaceful vantage of the Mediterranean coast in Egypt, the truth is as wholesome as it is sobering. True healing — for a split palm or a fractured planet — does not come from an external pharmaceutical fix, a corporate policy shift, or a sanitised semantic script. It comes from unlearning the manual, dropping the engineered paranoia of the herd mentality, and remembering that beneath the flags and the borders, we are all fundamentally brothers and sisters.
I write this with sincere love for a place I once gladly called a second home, knowing the true cost of maintaining one’s alignment outside the imperial behemoth. Stay strong. The journey of unlearning America has only just begun.
This decade remains one of the most insightful, educational, and profoundly transformative times of my existence.
May we all find Love in our hearts, Peace in our minds, and Passion in our lives.
 |
| Two-year old boy with his mother in Santa Monica, July 1979 — not too far from the “scene of the crime” some 30+ years later |
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ALSO VIEW:
📰 ✵ Ⅰ. The Twin Pillars of Alchemical Gold
Holding the Megaphone: A Decade of Alchemical Gold and Confessional Exorcisms
The Healing Powers of Storytelling: A Personal Experience
🧠 ✵ Ⅱ. The Subconscious Sub-Files
Early Memories Never Worded: The Subconscious Chronicles #1
Early Memories Never Worded: The Subconscious Chronicles #2
Why Americans Don’t Travel Much
Things I Couldn’t Quite Understand After Being On The Road For Seven Months [with Photos]
📸 ✵ Ⅲ. The Venice Beach Drum Circle Chronological Galleries
A Year at the Venice Beach Drum Circle in Photos (2014-’15)
Another Year at the Venice Beach Drum Circle in Photos & Videos (2016-’17)
One More Year at the Venice Beach Drum Circle in Photos & Videos (2017-’18)
Drum Circle Etiquette — The Do’s and Don’ts
How Drumming Changed The Way My Brain Processes Music
The Intertwining of Music and Sexuality ― A Djembefola’s Tale
A Random Call That Hit Me In The Feels
Why Hippies Are Sometimes Called Bohemians
Losing It 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧𝘭𝘺 At Full Lunacy: First Burst of Anger in Over 12 Years (2026)
⚓ ✵ IV. Attempting to Bridge the Gap Between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’
Part 1: The Coke Prank
Part 2: Officer Roberts
Part 3: Sergeant Pepper
Part 4: Evolution
Stop-n-Search That Hippy
Banged Up Abroad — My Few Days @ The Don Jail
Banged Up Abroad — A Night @ The London Police Station
