You must have seen a dozen of these “What I Really Do” things by now. Some of them are kind of funny. Most are kind of dull. I thought I’d do one for myself before somebody else did. Click on it and you should get the full sized version. If you’ve never seen one of these & want to know what they are, just enter “What I Really Do Meme” into your favorite search engine.
So I just found out this blog gets over 10,000 views a week and over 7,000 visits. I’m not sure what differentiates a visit from a view. But that’s a lot of people. Where are my Gempo Roshi-like piles of cash?
Eh. Whatever.
I’m kind of all Zenned out at the moment. I’ve been answering loads of questions as Tricycle magazine’s Meditation Doctor. If you want to read some of that stuff go to this link. It’s interesting that it all kind of boils down to just one question and just one answer. Some ancient Zen teachers noticed this and responded the same way to everyone who asked. Like Gutei, who would just raise one finger whenever someone asked him anything. I get that. But somehow I don’t think Tricycle’s readers would be satisfied if I just kept flipping them the bird.
Uh oh! The latest question is from someone who says they’ve been “experiencing deep, absorptive states.” Not sure what I’m gonna do about that. I guess we’ll see once I start writing my answer. I think Bounty is the quicker-picker-upper for deep absorptive states!
I kid! I kid! Hey! Don’t forget to tip your bar tenders. I’ll be here all week. Be sure to try the vegetarian imitation veal.
!
I got stuck at the "What I wish I did part" for a second 🙂
Brad, in his previous blog item: "This is why I get so annoyed when some people try to turn Zen into what most religions these days have become, a way to placate people so they're numb enough to function as cogs in the social machine. It's not about that."
This is a pretty good war cry for what might be seen as the downside of Brad's Zen enterprise, that is a type of "Fuck You Zen" based on a sort of arrogant individualism.
The imbalanced, extreme view contained in the above statement doesn't accomodate the fact that, whether we like it or not, most or all of us are social animals: we rely on networks of interdependance in order to survive and be who we are (networks such as family, friends, sangha, community, voting or non voting public, government even…) Although we might like to see ourselves (and be seen) as railing against it, we actually are very much 'cogs in the soical machine'.
Don't get me wrong, I like Brad's books (the one's I've read, the first two), but the tendency to resort to shallow, individualistic sloganism (as above), or just a straight up 'Fuck You, I'm getting enlightened here' seems ever present. And that is just another sort of religion after all… a very small, narrow one based on a particularly insubstantial function of the self.
"Fuck you Zen" is a pretty shitty religion.
Regards,
Harry.
4
🙁
Hey Harry,
I think your taking this attitude thing a little too far. It even seems strange to me, your downing this attitude for being so op positional, yet your stating at the same time it's not right? Read it for what it is, another one of Brads passing thoughts he was able to share with us, hoping for a smile on back.
lol Brad funny you should post this, cause I made my own funny meme pic of you yesterday while creating a whole bunch for various spiritual/ supernatural/ paranormal celebrities. I did such guys as Aleister Crowley, Sylvia browne, Deepak, Alex Jones, Dalai Lhama, etc.
Tell me what you think of yours:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/418882_10150540230497245_548702244_9449510_9596085_n.jpg
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd. net/hphotos-ak-ash4/418882_10150540230497245_548702244_9449510_9596085_n.jpg
Sorry here it is, just take away the space
Shit, I guess links won't work here. Oh well.
Hi Mark,
Not sure it's that simple; and it's more about how people interpret the 'attitude' than what Brad does/thinks himself (I happen to think Brad is a nice guy). Just sayin', because I've seen a lot of 'Fuck You Zen (or insert preferred brand)' on this blog; hence the inclination to point it out.
Just like punk rock/ hardcore (and this from an old punker); when the non-conformity becomes a uniform, and when the voice of protest becomes an unreasoned mantra, then its just not the same thing.
Think Brad deals with this aspect of the whole punk/hardcore adventure quite well in one of his books actually.
Regards,
Harry.
Your Mom gets over 10,000 views a week and over 7,000 visits.
Someone probably pointed this out already (unless the comments are unmoderated again?), but the difference between visits and views is likely that views is the time the blog page has been loaded in someone’s favourite internet ogling device and visitors is an attempt to track individuals who read the blog.
Ie. you’ve got 7.000 people checking out the blog 10.000 times.
Harry, There are plenty of saccharin sweet clones around Buddhism as it is. You might need to find your inner Fuck-you Harry again. You know, the charming, less serious guy. Take what Brad said in context and resist the urge to try and fix him. He probably gets enough of that.
CAPTCHA : and arnslob : I kid you not
Hi A-Bob,
Well, that's sort of my point: Any number of sour agressive clones is no real response to the number of saccharin sweet, passive-aggressive clones, or whatever: Buddhism might actually offer a more substantial form of authenticity than what it says on either of those tins, or on any of its tins. People are odd. But it seems people are so infatuated with these shiny tins. And, of course, there is no objective 'tin' anywhere in the universe, no objective 'buddhism'. We're really talking about our selves here (but not just our 'selves' as it might be conveinient to imagine a 'self' to be most of the time, although that latter point seems often to be underemphasised when the flags start to get waved).
Sorry I'm not being more charming, but, there you go… maybe it's my inner 'fuck-you' primal screaming to itself after all!
I wouldn't try to fix Brad for the world, but I do worry that he is mistaking his own interpretation of buddhism as 'true buddhism' more-or-less consistent with the rather blinkered viewpoints that have sprung up in Dogen Sangha from time to time… that's not very hardcore' at all… and it's not valid teaching of the fundamental point… according to my wholly authentic and superior 'true buddhism', of course. 😉
Regards,
Harry.
I think I kind of get what Harry is getting at. Zen isn't dependent on anything. So while it's not dependent on the attitude of "saccharin sweet clones" it's also not dependent on an attitude heretofore referred to as "fuck you zen." People cling to these ideals and it keeps us from seeing what is "true" about who we our and our situations. Just as clinging to the typcial new-agey, peace, love and happiness B.S. is detrimental to insight, so is clinging to the "rebellious," "anti-establishment" ideal.
Or, if you so please, you can tell me to fuck off, Harry.
I wouldn't dream of it, Manny!
…Well I probably would on occassion, but I'd try to resist the urge.
Which brings me to another popular 'true buddhism' fallacy: The idea that you are being 'authentic' when you're 'intuitively shooting-from-the-hip' which actually is often more likely to just be our indulging our habitual pathologies and assumed identites (given the rather pervasive and ingrained nature of our misperception of our selves).
I think, actually, that Zen is dependant on a lot of things; the valid and thorough practice of it I mean. Not least of these is engaging with a teacher, or just another person or people if you like, who can see things about us that we can't see ourselves… this isn't as voodoo-like and esoteric as it sounds: We learn things about ourselves in socially interacting with people all the time (often without even realising it). Dogen was a big advocate of the student/teacher relationship BTW, he saw it as essential to correct practice, although it is not particularly emphasised in Dogen Sangha it seems. And he wasn't just talking about the teacher as someone who taught someone to sit like a pretzel and then nothing else.
Part of the probelm with fanciful notions around the whole power-laden, hierarchical 'zen master' things is that there seems to be a perception that when a person has been 'made' as a teacher then their work in clarifying things is done… seems to me that their work realising themselves as 'buddhas together with buddhas' directly is only just beginning. 'Zen master' is not a very good place in which to hide from the world methinks, just as zazen is not intended to be a place to hide and seek protection in the vast vacuums of the self.
Regards,
Harry.
1 for the money
2 for the show
3 to get ready, and
4 to break free of the bonds of the perceived universe and its transitory nature and awaken to the awareness that consciousness is a large bowl of fruit salad and fat free cool whip
In re: Easter – What I have noticed over the years (in particular since 1979 when the Christian fundamentalists essentially took over the religious leadership of America) is more hypocrisy than ever. In some fundamentalist Christian churches, dressing up and going to church is almost a daily event; yet these same people support war, Robber Baron capitalism and the end of all social programs. As the reader can grasp, these modern Christians seem all too proud of their hypocrisy. In fact, it doesn't even dawn on them that they are hypocrites.
Agree or disagree
Harry,
The 'fuck' pointing at the 'you' is not the "fuck you."
TrT
Brad,
As you'll be getting no tippings from me, you'll have to make do with a little encouragement: I think your "What I Really Do" thing is very funny. I think your Meditation Doctor answers are very good.
And erm…Cheer up!
Here's one for you, Harry, although the part that's really relevant is the last couple of lines- speaking of the ancient "f*#k you" Egyptians, here:
"This is why all their procedures and even the passages of the Pyramid texts themselves are called se-akhs- or akhifiers- they were designed to allow a person to achieve a new form of spiritualized existence called the akh. The word 'akh' as a verb means 'to be effective' and the 'akh' as an entity was seen as a shining being who could come and go as it pleased. This means that the akh was not impelled by the forces of the universe to follow a set path but had achieved a state of freedom and ability to act in any situation. The goal of becoming an akh may not seem very spiritual when compared to more modern traditions but the Egyptians (certainly in the Old Kingdom) did not concern themselves with sentiment or niceness, their goal was freedom and that was that."
that's from my friend John's commentary on the Pyramid Texts of Unas, on Tao Bums.
Last night, during a break, one of the "old coaches" called us (group of 5) together and made suggestions about improving our sitting. Almost everyone has something that they can do – or stop doing – to improve their "sit down and shut up" time.
One guy went ballistic. "Praise in public, admonish in private." He said loudly.
"Never again," he said, "correct me inside the temple."
In a failing moment*, I thought: "Hmmm… he needs some improvement."
And then I woke up. So do I.
*which most of us have many
Harry, I like what you're saying here. Brad can clarify for himself, but I read him more as saying that Buddhism CAN and IS used for people to basically justify being numb automatons, going through their lives like gray, pale phantoms. I know a lot of people who live their lives this way.
The "fuck you" thing is a way of saying, "no, I'm going to be myself, so fuck you." If your genuine self is a nice, easygoing guy that doesn't make waves, it's kind of easy to be that person.
But what if the most genuine way you express yourself is by being kind of a curmudgeon, an asshole, maybe you aren't the kind of person that endears himself to the general public?
But those are just two extremes. The reality is we all fall in various places on the spectrum, and its largely dependent on where we are in our lives at any given moment.
Brad, as he does, was generalizing and writing in a way that both interests us and sometimes frustrates us, but he was expressing an interesting and valid point.
Zen–or any valid spiritual path imo–is not about becoming some smiling vacuous dope who grins at flowers. Its about being who we are, in the truest, most honest way and the best expression in this moment.
For some of us, that means not being in any way the kind of person that people want us to be, and Brad has an interest in protecting that process.
Anyway, that's my interpretation of it.
what I really do
Kudos to Your Mom at 12:15 PM above.
LOL
When I don't know what to do,
I just go to my Happy Place.
Don't forget to eat your oatmeal!
Occupy Canada
Gate, gate.
Paragate.
Parasamgate.
Bodhi Svaha.
Kobun Chino's translation:
Falling apart, falling apart.
Everything is falling apart.
Everything is always falling apart.
Nothing to do.
Or:
Entropy is
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
Irreversibility sucks
Harry,
maybe here's (in this world) enough room for all kind of Buddhists and Buddhism? Some are "fuck off" types, some are nambybamby. Some are between. Why can't people be who they are?
Peace.
Ah,
Uku, I've been expecting you.
The question of people 'being what they are' is a very important one; and I sort of addressed it above with the whole 'just be intuitive and you'll be fine' fallacy. What people are, and what they think (and subsequently act out what) they are, is often not the same. Very noticibly so.
I think people 'being as they are' is more often an excuse for us to be lazy and repeat/restate/enforce the comfortable old identities that we languish in. Sorry, but that's not right effort, and it's not very hardcore.
Regards,
Harry.
Gniz,
I think there's a good case for promoting individualism/self reliance in certain situations. Kodo Sawaki, for example, reacted against the very set hierarchy and groupthink of post WWII Japan with some very strident criticism of how people conducted (or didn't conduct!) themselves. I think this was very valid in that context (if a bit one-sided maybe). Also, people actually are just what they are in a sense; we are in no small way the sum total of what society has made us (in either our submission to societal pressures and our resistance of them, or both). Obviously, that's not the whole story where Buddhism is concerned tho.
What I'm thinking about here might be the difference between enagaging buddhim, and people/groups and/or a teacher (or NOT doing this), to radically challenge and revaluate our pervasive little notions of 'who we are' as opposed to joining groups or approaching teachers/teachings that accomodate, facilitate and perpetuate who we think we are.
Regards,
Harry.
Harry wrote:
Part of the probelm with fanciful notions around the whole power-laden, hierarchical 'zen master' things is that there seems to be a perception that when a person has been 'made' as a teacher then their work in clarifying things is done… seems to me that their work realising themselves as 'buddhas together with buddhas' directly is only just beginning.
That's a bit where I stand, too. One of the "problems" with it though, is that most people are looking indeed for a power-laden master, and when I let them know I'm not one, and that I've got almost as much road to ride than them, they don't take me seriously. But let it be so. I feel much more comfy…
I used to think that internet memes were funny, then I took an arrow in the knee.
dont know why all these people want to concentrate in zazen. maybe its in the dna. wanna "do something"- than its getting better
Just looked at the Meditation Doctor link. Looks exhausting. Non-stop virtual dokusan!
But, Brad is reaching a whole new (what looks like) younger audience, which will only broaden his readership.
He's developed a relationship with Tricycle magazine over the last year or so, first an interview, now a regular column.
Has he joined the "Zen Establishment?" Where the "bad boy" brand is absorbed into the mainstream?
In the words of cartoonist Ace Backwords when asked about his punk cred: "I'd sell out in a minute if anyone was buying!"
I haven't read through all the comments, but in case no one's answered this yet, views is the total number of times anyone has viewed your page. Visits refers to unique visits, which counts only how many unique IP addresses visited your site.
So, you have roughly 7,000 people visiting the blog about 10,000 times a week.
February 17, 2012 (NY Times)
China: A Ranking Monk’s Protest Suicide
By IAN JOHNSON
A Tibetan monk died after setting fire to himself Friday, another sign of the trouble in China’s western border region. According to the Tibetan lobby group Free Tibet, the monk, Tamchoe Sangpo, was a teacher in the Bongthak Ewam Tare Shedrup Dhargey Ling Monastery in Themchen County in Qinghai Province, and a member of the monastery’s management committee.
That would imply that he was in a position of responsibility and would have been vetted by authorities. Government officials have sought to portray the more than 20 people who have killed themselves in the protests so far as marginal figures or misled by outside propaganda. The protests took place after Chinese security personnel occupied the monastery after a previous “patriotic re-education” campaign* had met with protests.
************************
* Just what the Xtian Taliban
* Just what the Xtian Taliban has in mind for America's schools. A patriotic jesus.
Harry, a charadh!
I think I can somewhat relate to what Brad has in mind, with his "fuck you" attitude. As an anarchist, I do believe that societies have always tried to evolve in a way that could allow for the maximum anarchy without degenerating into "anarchy".
Here, I mean anarchy as a situation where people are sufficiently grown up to respect the rules without a policeman with a club behind each one.
But I also believe this is an idealistic view, and that we can, eventually, get nearer to it, but that, somehow, the policeman will always be necessary, although I do believe that the more decorative they are, the better. But that's a matter of education, and ultra-liberalism doesn't help that.
Practically, I think it's up to us to police ourselves, and yet try and avoid mavericks to do whatever comes to their mind in matters of self-centeredness.
Not an easy task, anyway…
Michel,
Thanks for that nuanced take on things!
Yes, liberalism without some sort of social recognition/responsibility seems to be fraught with extremes. I think the western idealistic model of 'freedom' to do whatever the hell we want is a nihilistic quagmire if we don't give a shit about other people (which, although an extreme representation of the percieved problem, may generally be a little closer to the truth as time goes on here in the west: Ireland is now the prime example of such corruption of the human heart-mind)… and it seems that Zen with it's emphasis on self reliance and 'free intuitive action' can be very easily misused to become an ultra-liberal 'fuck you, I'm free' wet dream come true.
Regards,
Harry.
This Tibetan suicide protest wave is a quite sad thing. I feel sorry for them, that the situation is so sh*t over there and people from the Western world just get more and more used to it, that Tibet belongs to China now and there is nothing to do.
Harry, what happened to you? How quick you went from forging a unique voice to donning the robe of yet another finger-wagging apologist for the status quo.
Different people have different temperaments. Not everyone is wired to be a "fuck you Buddhist" just as not everyone is wired to be a 9-5 family man or woman.
But we all express ourselves some way in this world. We don't erase our personalities through practice. And what is so annoying to the less docile tempered among us is this repeated, intense pressure to make ourselves into what they are. We will be reformed, by God, by the right drugs and training. Well, fuck that.
I spent my morning reading a blog that showed me just how docile and boring I and my life are. Something I know. But by Internet Buddhist standards, I'm some sort of crazy, wild, what have you. No. Not really. I can kiss ass to keep a job, pay my bills, and mind my social graces so as not to alienate my less open-minded peers. But there is an awareness, of how tentative my acceptance into many social circles is, how quickly a mention of the wrong thought or topic could result in being blacklisted. It is fucking annoying, to have to search and search for people you can be honest with about what you really think and feel.
The social fabric is a necessity of our human condition. But the person whose thoughts, feelings, or actions don't fall more or less into the social paradigm must live in an uneasy truce with it.
The thing that sets me at odds with the social paradigm is not my behaviors. I like working a steady job and doing a number of healthy, positive things. My vices are relatively mild. I do believe in a number of things, such as the value of love and work, that allow me to settle a little more easily into the social mold.
But I don't buy a lot of what is being sold out there. I live at a distance from life, and it is with this perspective I come into Zen practice. To find a respite and sane alternative to the lies of samsara that many others herald a sanity and 'normalcy.' So it is even more irritating to find a community of people who get where I'm coming from on some level, nonetheless fighting the battle for the repressive society watchdogs.
It's worse when your emotional dial is differently tuned, as mine seems to be. People try to fix a ''problem" I don't have, because I don't want to be reassured or securely walled off from the darkness. I can let the questions, the uncertainty, and the despair consume me. It is the intensity of those states of mind that fuel me. I get that not everyone wants to meet the Beast, but why must you insist I shackle mine, if no small children are being harmed? Why can't those of us with a bit of "fuck you" (or "fuck me," whatever the preference) in us be allowed to rage at the stars as needed?Why must we be assimilated into the drabness of your preferred routine?
Monasticism is an expression of rejection of society's values of family love and consumerism. And it has been the backbone of Buddhist practice and transmission for centuries. Western Buddhism seems to overwhelmingly encourage assimilation, rather than offer an alternative to mainstream culture. I think we need alternatives. Maybe people like "Fuck You Bob" could find more profound ways of being in the world if they could learn a different way to extend the finger to the society that they cannot fit into.
I am hardly a rebel. I fit all too well into society's machine in most respects. But I am all too aware it does not come so easily for everyone, and there are reasons for this, many of which have nothing to do with the virtue of the "successful ones." I respect, and on an inward level, relate to, the people who can't conform, and salute people who make a space in the world for the barbaric yawps of those without pressed shirts and a picket fence.
Stephanie,
'finger-wagging apologist for the status quo'… hee hee.
In your haste to assume that I'm in some way intending to defend the 'status quo' you seem to have missed my point which is not about how we dress it up at all (goody two shoes, 'hardcore zen', middle-class-white-college-educated-engaged-buddhist , disfunctional freak-unstable-intellectual-type, or whatever…) I don't even think there is a status quo any more: the ultra-liberals have pretty much won and greed is the new law; and the choas of the free markets is the new religion.
And 'In the Army Now' was possibly one of the worst Brit rock anthems ever besides.
Regards,
Harry.
But what is the point in coming out against dressing it up in punk clothing then? Yes, you are right, there is falsity in any uniform we wear, on an absolute level. But relatively, we have to wear something, and we tend to gravitate to what expresses our temperament and tastes.
I wish there was more room for talking about some of the emotions and aesthetic experiences I value among peers on the Zen path, but I have found it damned difficult to find an outlet, even on the freaking Internet, where there are forums for people who like to fuck stuffed animals. People who want to get all warm and fuzzy talking about their kids and dog find an outlet anywhere. Fuck You Bobs are pointed to the padded rooms, even if they are bathing and not disturbing the wildlife. So why dog Brad for trying to make one tiny space – even as tiny as a blog post – for a resounding, cathartic Fuck You in a sea of repressive niceties?
"But what is the point in coming out against dressing it up in punk clothing then? Yes, you are right, there is falsity in any uniform we wear, on an absolute level. But relatively, we have to wear something, and we tend to gravitate to what expresses our temperament and tastes."
Yes, we inevitably 'dress it up', and there is often merit in that… but often there's not if we mistake it for the totality of what we think we are (particularly in response to our faulty perceptions of what we consider others to be).
"So why dog Brad for trying to make one tiny space – even as tiny as a blog post – for a resounding, cathartic Fuck You in a sea of repressive niceties?"
My 'dogging' (ahem) is not really directed at Brad (even though I do find aspects of his style and his output questionable)… if this 'tiny space' is not for such questioning then maybe it's not very 'hardcore' at all. It would be really easy to label me just another 'hater' for example, to cast me out of Freak Sangha, no?.
I know a 'resounding, cathartic 'fuck you'' when I hear one. Don't hear 'em much tho; what I do hear much more often is people wallowing in the swaddling shit of their own comfy old self views and opinions. Pretty lame, especially if we've convinced ourselves to the contrary by shouting it loud enough, or expressing it convincingly enough.
Brad takes shots from his blog, but he won't follow it up and reason it out on his blog. He hides away. Maybe he's afraid of conflict; or maybe he's just sounding off for publicity in a way that he can't, in his heart of hearts, bring himself to back up. Smacks a bit of a lack of commitment to what he says to the observer. That's okay, but if we can't call him out on it then maybe we're unwittingly bolstering an even more lame 'status quo'.
I'm not happy to sit back and let our aloof glorious leader get away with assuming he's right all the time. How unkind and boring would that be?
'No Gods, No Masters' was how we used to put it in the old punk rock days (not that I understood what it meant really… I was just sounding off with the rest of the spiky headed, pierced sheeple).
Regards,
Harry.
Give up everyone! Harry will always have the last word. I'm sure he will respond to this, just watch.
When he read there were 10,000 hits a week he decided he'd hold forth. But guess what? Most, myself included, skip all but the first couple of comments, because Harry repeats himself in his responses and retorts.
Its worse than Mysterion. They both have their own blogs that no one reads. So they troll over here on Brad's. Once they start, it's full bore.
I think there's a couple of aspects to this conversation:
1) the discrimination of the good and bad in human behaviour and activity
2) the science of the relationships observable in the natural world
On the first, I think we would all dismiss crazy people as just sick individuals if they didn't also sometimes seem prescient, which I would guess is why they were revered as manifestations of the sacred in some cultures. We judge all the time, but occasionally we meet people who confound our judgement by acting in a way that conforms with the future even when we don't realize it at the time they are acting and judge them as out of touch. The Zen teachers from Japan I've been impressed by had this quality, as well as my friend who was schizophrenic.
2) There is a reality of relationships of the natural world that has given rise to Western science, and yet many scientists get confused about what is real. I've been enjoying this article, which is about the confusion some mathematicians still experience with regard to Godel's proof:
"Is Arithmetic Consistent?"
here's the quote that the article ends with:
"I talked for quite awhile to Albert Einstein at a banker's jubilee banquet where we both felt rather out of place. In reply to my question what problems he was working on now, he said that he was engaged in thinking. Giving thought to almost any scientific proposition almost invariably brings progress with it. For without exception, every scientific proposition was wrong. That was due to human inadequacy of thought and inability to comprehend nature, so that every abstract formulation about it was always inconsistent somewhere. Therefore, every time he checked a scientific proposition, his previous acceptance of it broke down and led to a new, more precise formulation. This was again inconsistent in some respects and consequently resulted in fresh formulations, and so on indefinitely."
I think what I admire about Brad and Western Zen (as it began in this country) is the journey into exploration of the inner reality, the attempts to find descriptions of inner experiences that can be communicated and occasionally replicated among members of the community. To me, that's what's great about the teachings of the Gautamid in 500 B.C.E. India; he described the meditative states, and phenomena concerned with the induction of meditative states explicitly, and considered them as a natural part of human nature. In my opinion, he didn't have a full enough set of tools to make that description at the time, but we do now. What's real, that's what we're talking about- but it's going to be incomplete, we have to acknowledge that from the outset too.
Actually if we speak about conformism etc. then you can see it here as well in how people attack different opinions then their own sometimes in a group :).
*than
sry
Anon said, "They both have their own blogs that no one reads. So they troll over here on Brad's. Once they start, it's full bore."
In projecting your faults onto others,
You forgot the big-ass horse you are riding.