Parable of Solitude, from Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X

I love Duke's tune In My Solitude, although I long wanted to rename the tune In My Negritude to express my African consciousness. But, as my dear friend Amina Baraka likes to say, if truth be le told, I learned solitude from childhood. My mother told one of my wives she recalled I could spend hours and hours playing with my toys in solitude. And I remember such, in the backyard of our house on 7th and Campbell in West Oakland. I recall in my play house organizing toy soldiers. After all, my childhood hero was General Eisenhower. I remember the end of World War II and then the establishment of Palestine. At the drive-in theatre with my parents, I remember the newsreels of Palestinians fleeing across that bridge into Jordan. I didn't know what was going on and didn't bother to ask my parents, but those fleeing refugees bothered me deeply, a child born in 1944 and witnessing  the 1948 struggle of Palestine. And then came the conflict in North Korea in the 1950's. I recall the cartoons showing human waves of Koreans and Chinese slaughtered by the USA. Even now I see the North Koreans and Chinese grinning as they attacked the US and were slaughtered. I had no understanding of such events even though my parents were conscious, after all my father was a Race Man and mother a Race Woman. They published the Fresno Voice, a Black newspaper in Fresno, California. Although they published a Race newspaper and were social activists, they never explained foreign events to me such as Palestine and the Korean conflict. I remember when the Korean Conflict ended in the 1950s because a brother ran through the projects shouting the Korean was over. Of course, it is still going on and we are anxiously awaiting Rocket Man's rocket to land in Los Angeles as I write.

Growing up in Fresno and Oakland, California, especially in Oakland where I played with those toy soldiers in solitude, I soon began writing in the Children's Section of the Oakland Tribune. I also wrote short stories at Prescott Elementary School. But it was when my parents separated and Mom returned to Fresno and established her Real Estate business that my creativity and solitude began in earnest, after all, I was in the house with six sisters with their eternal chatter and solitude was my only refuse even though my one year older, Ollie, was no comfort since he was a constant visitor to Juvenile Hall and the California Department of Corrections, so I retreated into my room to avoid the chatter of my sisters. In my room, I created my world of make believe, along with reading a plethora of books from book clubs that when I became a teenager, the books were accompanied with Rainer Ale or Green Death that was my company when girlfriends and boyfriends were not around, along with grandfather who shared my room, especially when my brother was in the company of the California Department of Corrections, although there were times when he and I were both in Juvenile Hall and only my grades saved me from California Youth Authority. I remember Mom leaving Juvenile Court with me (my brother was on his way to CYA), and the judge didn't send me to CYA along with my brother only because of my grades. Yes, I was an honor student fuck up. The judge said it would cost the State as much to send me to college as it cost to send me CYA, so he released me. I asked Mom why she wasn't crying? Mom said, "Son, I might not be crying on the outside, but I'm crying on the inside!"

With my brother gone to CYA and eventually to the Department of Corrections, I did indeed enjoy a life of solitude. I shared my bedroom with my grandfather, but he was most often drunk on Gin while I was drunk on Rainer Ale or Green Death as we called it. My room closet was so full of empty quart bottles of Rainer Ale that Mom asked me to please clean them out, please!

Meanwhile, my six sisters were in the living room of our housing projects abode living their life with their girlfriends and boyfriends. For sure, my six sisters had the finest girlfriends in the world. One eventually won the Miss California Contest, but in the age-grade structure of our ghetto society, I did not think of hooking up my sister's girlfriends or my own friends younger sisters, although I lusted for them and later learned they were lusting for me as well. Eventually, I was devastated when I found my best friend hiding in the closet of my sisters. Even though I was a part of the age-grade ghetto society, still, I couldn't understand why my best friend didn't tell me he was dating my sister. Yet, I knew if I dated a sister of my friends, it would have been totally out of line. e

I only dated girls in my age-grade until much later in life when my sister's girlfriends connected with me and let me know they'd wanted me since our teenage days. Even then, my sisters sometime played block woman and tried to prevent me from connecting with their girlfriends, now grown and most often living in the Bay Area. As they say in the hood, "I caught them in the 33rd!"

No matter the females, my creativity was a constant, although I often misread my creativity for sexuality, perhaps the most critical misreading of my life that cost me the lost of my productivity as a creative artist.

For sure, my sexual desires were  a tragic misreading of my creative energy that became a violent expression in my partner relationships simply because I was never satisfied and would never be able to achieve such satisfaction through my sexual explorations, no matter how many wives and  extramarital affairs, even when I was more than sexually satisfied though ultimately unsatisfied, for after all, when one is addicted to anything, there is no satisfaction, one is lost in the illusion and chases the dragon until one finally realizes as the mystics teach, "All is illusion!"

Surely something is terribly wrong when one enjoys wives and partners, yet finds himself masturbating in the night.  Surely a dance student was right when she said, "Marvin X, I ain't giving you no pussy because you got enough pussy already!" She was right because even if she had given me her pussy, it would have not been enough!" The addict wants more and more and more.

Thus, the only reality is knowing there is no reality except the metaphysical, i.e., beyond reality into the deep down purple funk of the self that transcends the material, physical and all that is not in the deep structure of the mind and heart. As Dr. Hare told us, "In the bottomless caverns of addiction in any form, there seems no amount of religiosity, coke, crack, alcohol or sex sufficient to sedate the social angst and shattered cultural strivings...."

So where and when does one find that ultimate satisfaction beyond sex, money and material illusions?

I found it in my creativity, the joy and happiness that even money and sex could not satisfy, even a wife or woman could not. Only in solitude was I happy and joyful and in full submission to the Creator of the Universe, as Sun Ra often told me I had to do.

Yes, even when I enjoyed five years of solitude in the mountains with very few visitors and no sex, only then did I submit to the Creator and let Him guide my pen. And He did, forcing my hand to write His will and discard my silly notions of creativity.

And I am pleased for in those five years of solitude, I wrote five books and healed from all my trauma and unresolved grief. And those who read my books said it wasn't the subject matter of the books but rather the tone that healed them from their stress, unresolved grief and trauma.

Initially, I didn't understand where one reader was coming from since he was not speaking of the subject matter. It was the tone of peace in the book that soothed him from the stress of his life.

It was then that I realized it was the peace in which I wrote that gave him peace, no matter what I wrote, rather what soothed him was the peaceful tone in my book. And, for sure, five years in solitude in nature, among birds, bees, deer, turkeys, hawks, cows, horses,  I was at peace with myself and thus able to spread my little light, even when I didn't know I was spreading light. Sometimes we don't realize it is not what we say but how we say it that is the healing balm of Gilead. What did JB say, "Talkin' loud, saying nothin!" Nigga you yappin and yappin but ain't sayin nothin!

I had to tell myself it wasn't the material or subject matter,  but simply the tone of peace derived from my environment and state of mind that caused me to enjoy neural placidity or a change of my nerve cells that was transferred to my book and to the reader. Imagine, if a mother is calm, cool and collected, her children will be so as well.

And yet it is unfortunate so many of the things I say the average human being cannot comprehend, and often I know my suggestions cannot be comprehended by those of low information vibration. Yet I cannot dumb down, so I challenge the low information vibration people to be their greater self rather than their lower self and force themselves to seek the Upper Room of their Father's House.

In my solitude I must focus on my bliss or holy purpose. Take what you can from me and throw the rest into the dustbin. For sure, I do not desire you to follow me, rather follow the mind God gave you as my Mother told me to do!
Ache!
Marvin X
2/22/18