While filmed during the summer of 2018, Treetops documents a lifestyle and way of thinking that is highly relevant in the new world of 2020. Simplifying your life is no sacrifice at all; rather, an opportunity to end your suffering and experience life in a joyful new way. 

Watch the film on Amazon Prime.

The full film is also available for free on YouTube:

"America represents 5% of the world’s population but consumes 50% of the world’s prescription pills and over 80% of the world’s prescription narcotics; this is NOT a coincidence."  This is a quote from the film American Addict.  A narcotic is any drug that affects mood or behavior.  Examples of legal narcotics include Prozac, Ridalin, Valium, or any pain-killer.  Americans turn to these drugs for every problem they have and every discomfort they feel.  In fact, a recent study shows that up to 70% of Americans take prescription drugs.  This has a lot to do with how completely fucked Americans are, both as individuals and as a society.

How can it be that anyone actually believes drugs can solve their problems?  Do we turn to illegal drugs like Heroin or Cocaine with a legitimate expectation that doing so will help us work through problems or "balance our brain chemistry"?  Why do we lie to ourselves that legal narcotics are any different?  The simple answer is that we are foolish enough to trust a health care system that lies to us for profit.  Or maybe it just seems easier to go for the quick fix than to do what it would actually require to solve problems.   

Despite what psychiatrists, physicians, and direct-to-consumer drug advertisements tell us, drugs are not the way to solve problems.  Once upon a time, when a teenager or young college student was dealing with angst, he might try to work through these feelings by reading philosophy or literature.  Maybe he would put on some loud music or go to a party.  If that didn't work, he might actually decide to make some changes!  Maybe he would quit a job, maybe travel, maybe change majors or go into a new profession.  

But people on narcotics end up muting their personalities, confusing their thinking, and lessening the potential of their lives in a desperate attempt to cope.  People on narcotics not only become sick and often die from the habit, they end up living lives that fall short of their full potential.

Everything I am and everything I have become is directly related to my feelings of angst, pain, anxiety, longing, and depression.   When I entered the corporate world after University, I fell into a deep depression.  Rather than taking Prozac, I turned to art and beauty for comfort.  I ended up becoming a huge music fan.  As a result of becoming a music fan, I eventually became a songwriter.  Today, when I pick up a guitar and play something...when I write a song...when I get on a stage...the only antidepressant I need is music.  I know that antidepressants would have kept me from feeling anything strong enough to lead me down this path...this path of becoming. 

Those years in the gray, corporate cubicle in Seattle were the most depressing of my life.  People close to me suggested that I consider antidepressants (which, of course, any professional would have prescribed).  I sought comfort in truth instead.  This led me down a fascinating path of discovery about how our political and economic system really works.  While these truths initially led me into an even deeper depression, I still somehow found comfort in truth.  I began to realize that I wasn't crazy and I wasn't fucked up.  It is the world that is no longer meant for healthy human beings.  It is the system that is fucked.  In a real and profound way, I started to free myself from so many of the tentacles of this cancerous system in which we live.  This journey would have never happened if I had chosen to numb myself with antidepressants.

The depression I felt during those years was extraordinarily painful, but it was emotion that guided me toward the path I was meant to take.  I chose not to medicate myself in order to cope with the unacceptable; rather, to change the unacceptable by continuing to seek that which was desirable.  In the years that followed, I moved to Europe, wrote books, recorded albums, performed, met amazing people, and spent a lot of time in places I never thought I would see.  I have prospered and, more importantly, I have not been depressed.  Actually, my life of experience has left me extraordinarily happy and satisfied.  No, I'm not happy every day...of course not.  I get sad, depressed, agitated, sick, and exhausted just like everybody else does.  But I know that these are the feelings that will nudge me toward some kind of progress.  When I feel that everything is fucked up, I change everything and make progress.  That's how it is supposed to work!  That's why nature has given us these feelings!  Only a fool or coward would attempt to kill these feelings with drugs.

The only way to solve our problems is to change ourselves and change our lives.  To use drugs in order to cope is to remain stuck in a situation that is not acceptable.  Only when our pain and suffering becomes severe enough do we find the courage and strength to follow our intuition and start down the path of becoming. 

Pharmaceutical companies are powerful players in a cancerous system that wants us stuck as servants to the ugly machine of capitalist destruction.  When we take what they are offering, we do not get better.  Instead, we suffer enormous side-effects just to cope for a few hours (until we take the next pill).  Those pills make us physically sick as they kill our emotions, deaden our instincts, change our natural appetites and drives, and make us do something as crazy as learning to accept the unacceptable.  Not to mention, hundreds of thousands of people die from prescription drug overdoses every year (think Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, and Marylyn Monroe).  

When it comes to our emotional pain, the truth is that we must reject all medicine and psychiatry completely.  The solutions to our problems are to be found in the brilliance, beauty, and possibility of the world around us.  The solutions are to be found in love, art, intellectualism, and experience!  Happiness is to be found in that which excites us!  So let's flush the pills down the toilette so that we may continue down nature's path of becoming.  

Both men and women have our own varieties of porn, but the consequences of each are equally destructive.  Men like the kind of porn that, quite honestly, involves themes like fucking two hot Russians.  Women, on the other hand, are turned on by an entirely different kind of porn: the Hollywood “chick flick”. 

Of course I’m using the word “porn” loosely; while, at the same time, am absolutely equating these two “art-forms” (for lack of a better word) as the same damn thing.  Both the sex porn and the chick flick tap deep into our fantasy worlds and have the power to change the way we think.  They ultimately define what we think we want from life and subconsciously guide our most foolish of life decisions.  As discussed in the Abscondo Podcast called "Morality of Consequence", my value system is based on Consequentialism.  In this case, the consequence of porn being our collective inability to form healthy, fulfilling relationships and our tendency to destroy the relationships we do have.

Porn taps straight into fantasy…our wildest fantasies.  The recent Hollywood film starring Sarah Jessica Parker (probably the most famous female porn actress of all) is called “New Year’s Eve”.  I didn’t see this movie, but my wife did last night with her girlfriends.  This is a true chick flick, just like the thousands before it.  I asked her what it was about and she described a scene where the “Mr. Perfect” character turns down two younger women to chase after the older woman who has a child.  No scenario could make the point I’m about to make better than this scene (which I, admittedly, didn’t see and hopefully never will see first-hand). 

The fantasy being presented in any chick flick is that of the unrealistic man – the man who looks perfect, has the right profession, has the right apartment in Manhattan with the right view, and doesn’t rush sex until she’s ready.  His only purpose in the film is to ultimately please the female lead and make her life complete.  This is a guy who has no individual needs other than to chase the female character (who is usually slightly imperfect but that’s ok) to the airport before she leaves forever.  Music builds as he runs through traffic and jumps over cars without harming the perfect bouquet in his hand.  The end of the film is that ultimate moment when he commits to “forever” and all of her problems are solved.

The male porn, of course, is all about sex.  Lots of sex with unrealistically attractive women willing to do things no women would do if trying to satisfy her own sexual desires.  I’ll just simplify and call this “sex with two hot Russians”.  These two different kinds of porn have a deep influence on our relationships even before they begin.

Women are attracted to men to the extent that they are like Mr. Perfect in the chick flick.  Men know this works on women, and so we play the part in order to attract the girl.  But, in truth, men are attracted to women to the extent that she looks as sexy as the porn actress.  Women also know this, and might even look the part (and play the part in bed) in order to catch the man.  If successful, nature runs its course and our couple becomes obsessed with each other and falls in love.  This stage ends with the perfect like-in-the-movies proposal and the storybook wedding.

Now we have two people who are together mainly because a) they watched lots of porn and it had a huge influence on them, and b) they are each good at playing the part…at being what the other thinks they want.  But where is the authenticity in this relationship?  Who exactly are these two people as individuals?  How can they be happy over the long-term if they have just entered into a life in which they cannot be who they truly are?  If she gains weight, isn’t as exciting in bed, and no longer looks like she did when they met at the club…then she’s not living up to his fantasy.  Furthermore, a marriage based on life-long fidelity cannot possibly live up to his fantasy at all.  So what happens?  Many years go by and, despite progressing levels of disillusionment, our perfect couple has a few perfect kids.  But finally, he gives-in to his fantasy and leaves his family for the promise that he might one day actually have that sex with two hot Russians.  Will he have sex with two hot Russians?  Perhaps, if he goes to Amsterdam and pays for two hookers to act out his fantasy for him.  But then, after that…when he meets a real woman who he doesn’t pay…what does this future woman want?  She wants the same thing his wife does: Mr. Perfect in the movie. 

Similarly, after many years tolerating her husband watching football, drinking beer, getting fat, looking at beautiful women walking by, forgetting anniversaries, ignoring her emotional needs, and refusing to go see chick flicks…she also might decide that she’s had enough.  She’s still young, after all, and there must be a guy out there who more closely resembles Mr. Perfect in the movie.  So she might decide to break up the family for no other reason than her naïve and unrealistic hope that she will meet this other guy…this Mr. Perfect in Manhattan who will (if she’s lucky) succeed at temporarily projecting the same fantasy her husband did originally (at first) but who really wants, deep down, to fuck two hot Russians.

The point is that if we get carried away with our porn-fueled fantasies…if we allow porn to shape our expectations, desires, and life decisions…then what we are left with are lots of beautiful but unhappy children asking what daddy did to mommy or what mommy wants from daddy that he can’t give.  All around us we have lots of otherwise intelligent, beautiful, potentially happy and content people going into their 30’s, 40’s, and into the rest of their lives lonely, watching lots of porn, and wondering when they are going to live the life they were promised in the porn.  They won’t.

Our relationships, instead, should be based on perceiving the other person, accepting loved ones for who they truly are, and being honest with each other about who we really are and what we really want.  In short, our love-life should be an expression of our authentic selves.  It should be so deep and unique that it cannot be understood by the outside world.  This kind of love is not “of” the outside world; rather, it exists in a universe that is created, from scratch, by two people.  It should be an exploration of our deepest feelings, needs, and even fantasies.  It should also involve calling-out the other person when they are full of shit.  It should embrace constant growth and change.  In love, we must never mistake the warm, living-and-breathing person who is giving his or her life and entire being to you…we must never confuse that person for the cliché images on the screen.  

Women: there are no perfect men in Manhattan waiting to meet you just so they can exist only to please you.  Men: there will never be two hot Russian friends willingly kissing each other and waiting for you to enter the room.  Let’s make this work in reality.

Now that I've begun expressing myself not just through writing and music, but also by means of audio and video, I've begun to question what it is I'm actually attempting to do through these multiple mediums and why.

Regardless of medium, the goal is always to communicate an idea to the audience...to communicate something I feel is worthy of attention, something interesting or important.  But to do this I use two basic and fundamentally different approaches.  While everything on this blog can be considered a "creative work", not all of it is intended as "art".  So what exactly is the difference between something that can be classified as art and something that is not art?

Depending upon the nature of the subject-matter being communicated to the audience, one approach or the other must be used. This is where I will compare the differences between the nature of logic and reason vs. the that of beauty, passion, or inspiration.  Other than the poetry podcast, the Abscondo Podcast makes no attempt at art.  What Sofia and I attempt to achieve here is to appeal to your sense of logic.  We attempt to present a compelling argument.  We try to communicate an idea through reason.  The podcast format is an effective way of communicating certain kinds of ideas...simple observations, theories, opinions...anything having to do with that which is observable or has a cause and effect.  The same is true with respect to much of my writing.  But there is a limit to this type of expression.  The limit is found when an idea cannot be rationalized, argued, measured, and observed.

This is where art steps in.  Perhaps the most fundamental purpose of art is to communicate about things which fall outside the limits of logic and reason.  I firmly believe, for example, that what is between two people cannot be understood by a third.  This is most clearly visible in the case of love.  It is only possible to successfully explain our feelings of love to the object of our affection him or herself.  But when we try to make a friend, a family member, or an audience understand that love, understand that relationship through mere words (through "prose"), we fail.  We are left with a frustrated sense that nobody understands or, worse yet, our words are misunderstood and twisted into something unrecognizable.  So if we wish to express love to any third party, we must look to art if we have any chance at all of success!

Love, pleasure, beauty, despair, inspiration, hope, these are feelings.  The best way to communicate about feelings is in the language of art.  Imagine the attempt to comfort a brokenhearted friend by saying, "Everyone gets their heart broken now and then, you'll get over it."  It might actually be more helpful for her to listen to a favorite song which was written and performed by a complete stranger.  We watch films, read fiction, look at paintings, and listen to music so that we might understand a feeling a little differently.  We might see someone else' perspective on a feeling or emotion.  In doing so, we might understand our own feelings differently.  We might even change how we feel.  We might at least find comfort in that we are not alone. 

It is also interesting to note that not every film, composition of music, painting, or sculpture is, indeed, art.  A rap song about bitches and bling, a cardboard cut-out at the movie theater, the vast majority of Hollywood films, most best-sellers at the airport book store -- this content is not art in the truest sense.  These are examples of Commercial communication.  The focus on "communicating something about feeling" is not primary.  The "art of the mainstream" is, instead, designed to sell, influences us to shop, and actually prevents us from feeling and thinking in the truest, deepest sense.  This is content, not art. 

Similarly, Commercial news and talk show content is not truly designed to communicate ideas which appeal to logic and reason.  Art is dying.  Logic is dying.  That's because nearly all mainstream, commercial, corporate-sponsored content is nothing more than an advertisement, a sales pitch, and a form of propaganda sponsored by and created by the powerful elite.  It is designed neither to bring us truth, enlightenment, logic, critical thinking, nor is it designed to bring us any closer to beauty, bliss, pleasure, emotional balance, or contentment.  Rather, its purpose is always to merely justify the status quo by convincing all of us to conform to it and to not think or feel outside of it.  Oh, and if we don't like the void we are left in, we are allowed to look to religion (the only other acceptable option).  Bullshit.

What I'm doing, with the help of Sofia, might only be one lonely voice that at times seems a bit strange.  It may not always make sense and I may not always even succeed.  But my audience can at least know that the focus is purely on the idea, always on the feeling, and always aimed at a general quest for purity, freedom, and truth.

The topic of this Friday's podcast is fundamental to the idea of seeking an authentic life.  In fact, it isn't possible to achieve a lifestyle that is more authentic unless we are willing to always question and resist authority.

Authoritative power is creeping into our lives in so many obvious forms (government, schools, church), and oftentimes in more disguised forms (corporate media, corporate influence over government).  We explain the belief system known as Anarchy, which is not a desire for chaos and lawlessness; rather, a constant questioning of the legitimacy of authority.

Part of today's show also deals with alternative forms of media (non-commercial media).  For those who are interested, I promised to share a few examples of anti-establishment media:

News:

Democracy Now!

The Real News Network

Music:

KEXP is a good example of commercial-free radio that plays music far more interesting than what you'll hear in the commercial radio.

Film:

Go for independent films, or if you're more interested in documentaries that explain some of these ideas, try: Manufacturing Consent (Noam Chomsky) or any film by Michael Moore.

Books:

As far as non-fiction, try:

"When Corporations Rule the World" by David C. Korten

"Shock Doctrine" or "No Logo" by Naomi Klein

If I were to provide one recommendation for a work of fiction, it would be "The Joke" by Milan Kundera.

Limitless options...where to begin?

The Abscondo Podcast is available for free on  iTunes.  It is also accessible via this direct feed or wherever you normally get podcasts.  You can also receive an email alert whenever a new   episode is available by submitting your email address here:

The Abscondo Podcast includes conversations between people who are exploring new ideas and seeking truth.  The show is hosted by Mark Manney, an American writer, recording artist, and social comentator who lives in Eastern Europe with his wife Sofia (the show's co-host).  The podcast features interviews with inspiring people, intense conversation, and original music.

Take part in the conversation by leaving us a message at (206) 905-1386.  Write to us at [email protected].  We'll respond to your message on the next episode or even invite you onto the show as a guest.