I am often asked why, in BlueSuburbia, I frequently make references to the words “numb” and “empty”. I have received a few emails now in regards as to what these words mean to me, and why they appear as such an underlying theme in so many of the poems. Therefore, I state the following…

Respect for life has been lost because nobody respects their life. In a way, we (the civilized human) dig our own graves with our spoons. Because everything is about eating and consuming, and this at such a massive rate that all substance to what we consume has been lost, which is causing us as people to loose substance. We are empty. There is nothing left to do but to be indifferent (consider teenagers in this case, kids are depressed because they are faced with this future).
I mean; art is the reflection of society, so look at modern art. It says everything about society today… which is nothing. We have lost passion because we no longer care. It is easier to consume than to understand. We are dis-attached from nature, and ourselves. We have literally come from The Potato Eaters to The Masturbators. People that are passionate and care are faced with being called crazy and are prescribed medicine to numb them and keep them from caring.
The human race was always about self improvement and somewhere along the way we decided to turn to mass production (the Industrial Revolution) and drop our greatest trait. We have abandoned progress and betrayed our nature to structualize, compartmentalize, automate life. We want to be productive and efficient, and this is understandable and a good thing, but the way we are doing it is by no means productive or beneficial. This is not an efficient and beneficial way, it is a way that feeds greed. We have become drug addicts to a lifestyle that is endangering us. We are a dying race. Earth will be fine (nature will find a way to thin us out), it is ourselves that we must save.

A while ago I made the transition to raw food for two reasons. The most obvious being for “health” the second to consider alternate lifestyles that are based on conscious living.
I personally find it silly if one complains about the state of the world but does nothing to change it, at least for themselves.
I hate doing things out of “religious” reasons. Initially I was determined not to be a raw-foodist in this sense, but take more of a practical approach.
I am no longer able to see this transition this way. The biggest way you can change yourself is by changing what you put in you. If change, true change, happens from within then the most rational step is to consider a lifestyle that is conscious. Change occurs on a fundamentally basic level, on an individual basis.
As a child, when I went for walks with my mother in the park, she used to tell me not to pick the flowers. I would ask her “why not if there are so many of them?” She would answer “because if everybody would pick one, then there would be none left”.
Why let companies make a business of our bodies and let them “own our stomachs”? Aren’t food and water the most fundamental aspect of life? If everyone changed how they lived, the market demand would change, and companies would be forced to change in order to continue catering to the consumer’s demands. Anyone that works in any consumer-related industry will tell you this. By buying from companies with bad humanitarian and economic business practices we are supporting their business. When you buy groceries, entertainment, electronics, you (the consumer) are faced, on a daily basis, with whom to invest in. In a way the state of the world is indeed our, the common man’s, fault.

All this has led me to believe that there is something much more to the human experience than we give it credit, that life is indeed filled with infinite complexities and sensitive balances and masses of meaning and purpose. That, by removing ourselves from nature, we alienate ourselves from ourselves and these “deeper meanings”. That science is about finding questions not answers. That we are here to develop ourselves and discover ourselves. This is why I believe conformity is bad, everyone is different and they should be encouraged to be themselves to the fullest possible extent. There is no single “meaning to life”, the meaning to life is different for every individual, and we are here to discover this on our own.

…On a more cheerful note! A little free-spirited classic for your hearing pleasures: