Once, in darkening twilight, a friend told me, gNothing is forbidden. Everything is Possible.h Ever since they emerged from his mouth, I have taken those words to heart.

In this story I will talk of gforbidden things,h activities that make people uncomfortable. Many friends warn me to not write of these things lest other people create the wrong impression of me. Well, I canft control peoplefs impressions. All I can do is know myself, and know that my ability to balance many different lives will lead to my dream of unlimited possibilities and an undying curiosity to explore every facet of life, forbidden or not forbidden.

Two weeks ago a close friend of mine, Jenny, left on a ski trip to Whistler. She left me the keys to her 1,200 square foot artist's loft located right in the middle of the Capitol Hill nightlife scene. She said I was welcome to crash there and have a few friends over if we all gkept it low key.h

That night--a Saturday--I DJed a small show for a benefit fundraiser at a bar on Capital Hill. The payment for me filling their dance floor with bouncing bodies and sloppy smiles was six or seven shots of whiskey\I lost count unfortunately.

My DJ set at the bar ended around midnight. The night was still young. The whiskey in my brain started to do a very intricate mathematical equation. It went something like this:

6-7 shots of whiskey + 4,000 watt speakers that I own + a key to my friendfs artist loft four blocks away + a cell phone = me texting: gArtist loft after party. I am DJing. Loud Bangers.h

In my head this meant a few of my friends would show up and we would dance the night away. In reality this prompted a chain-reaction of phone calls and word of mouth messages. Soon my speakers and turntables were set up and swarms of people were piling into Jennyfs loft. I am pretty sure Jenny did not intend glow keyh to mean a mosh-pit full of people in her loft thrashing about to heavy Electro music blasting their ear drums.

But, I am a DJ, and when a DJ sees tons of people lusting after loud and dirty music, the only thing a DJ thinks of is how loud can the speakers go before the bass starts to overload the amps. And that is exactly what I did.

These days I have a surprisingly large following of fans who will show up wherever I deejay, pretty incredible considering I decided to get back into DJing less than 6 months ago. For years I had always been too shy to ever take the risk of being in the spotlight. I was so envious of people on stage and all attention they had gotten. I wanted to experience the thrill of being the center of attention.
Little did I know, this thrill came with many costs. Obviously my insecurities had led me to pursue this narcissistic lifestyle of rock-stardom. My desire to be appreciated, to be wanted, to be cared about, had led me to throw myself wildly into music.

When I am behind my synthesizers and turntables I feel as if I am on drugs; it is so intoxicating to be pleasing so many people at once. But like most drugs, the feeling afterwards, when you are home in your bed alone, is empty and ultimately unfulfilling.

Around three in the morning the property manager of Jennyfs loft barged in through the door and shut the party down. I canft blame him. We were going mad. So many bodies dancing and moving. The bass was shaking rib-cages.

Originally I had only planned on inviting people I knew, but when I looked at the crowd I only saw strangers with curved and narrow faces, their eyes hollow and searching. My friends were all gone, and after everyone left only a few vampires remained. I knew these vampires vaguely, recognizable faces I had seen in crowds I have DJed before. There were about five of them, all jittery, nervous hands and sideways smiles.

Soon the bags of white powder were being formed into straight lines. Dollars bills were rolled, and the bag's contents started disappearing into our noses and sifting into our brains.

One of the vampires who had stayed was a girl I knew quite well. I had met her last summer during a rough transition in my life. The time was after my break-up, when I was desperately trying to understand human relationships. This girl and I had many long conversations about relationships, casual dating, intimacy, human sexuality, and the various and fascinating ways it all can take form between people. Ultimately, we reached no conclusion, but we did end up sleeping with each other a few times in dramatic spurts of passion and confusion.
Last summer this girl had just started going back to school. Honestly, she is one of the best writers I have met. Her life has been a turbulent and rare path that translates well into story form. I knew she had potential to be a great writer.

But, here at the party, talking to her in a haze of whiskey and blow, I found out that she had dropped out of her Creative Writing program and was now dealing coke for a living. My mind was too polluted with drugs to understand the significance.

The next morning I found myself naked. I was tangled in the limbs of this girl. It was 9am and I was still awake. We had been tangled and twisted in our passion and confusion for three hours. The haze in my mind was wearing off. Slowly memories of the past ten hours began to surface.

What was I doing?

Before I could think about this I received a text message from Jenny.

The text read: gyou are fired.h

I called her back. She did not answer.

Later that day I received an email from Jenny that read: gI hate youh attached to the email was a digital copy of an eviction letter she had received from her landlord in lieu of the massive impromptu party I had gaccidentallyh thrown at her loft.

I called her again. She still did not answer. I called her about thirty times over the course of the next three days. Still no answer from her.

At that point, I knew that I had blown it on so many levels. Not only had I severely let myself down, I had let down one of my closest friends. gLet downh is too soft of a term. I had completely screwed her over. I had gotten her evicted from her own house.

I was letting myself go too far. In less than six months I had lost a good chunk of fitness. My life as a talented athlete was suffering as I could barely keep up in races that last year I had been dominating.

You see: The problem is that I am lost, and the easy way to fill up this confusion is with distractions--my distraction of choice has been late nights and loud music.

The days following the party catastrophe, I went on long runs. One day I ran for four hours straight. Exercise is how I center myself. Initially I decided to never play live music again. But I quickly realized my problems had nothing to do with music. It had to do with how I was acting, how I was behaving, how I was reacting to my current life situation.

Finally I figured out the problem: I have no structure I am passionate about.

Over the course of this past year I had been deconstructing my previous life in order to be able to start fresh. So many of the structures from my past no longer exist. After 20 years of school I finally graduated. After years of pursuing professional bike racing, I stopped. After years of drama and heartache, my girlfriend left me. After years of clinging onto destructive ways of thinking, I decided to stop. It was time to find my true passion.

Eradicating old habits and patterns to establish new ones. Not as easy as you think. But, oh so rewarding.

But now I had gone too far. I had disassembled my life to a point where I was acting chaotically and unproductively.

After three day of running, thinking and going to bed early, I came up with a solution. The ultimate solution that will link all my passions together, give me focus and direction, and simultaneously give me absolute freedom to grow and create and find out how the hell I fit in this world.

We only have so many years to be alive. I am willing to maximize these years and experience as much as possible. All it takes is the ability to let go.

And this means there will be adventure on my horizon. A Great Adventure that will take many months to complete. Yes, you will hear more of this in times to come as you read the life of HARM.

p.s. Eventually I received an email from Jenny. It read: gI love you and had to teach you a lesson. I am not getting evicted. APRIL FOOLS.h

That damn girl is too smart for her own good. But, my lesson was taken wellc