It is very strange to think about it now.  When I was younger, there are so many memories in front of the television.  The shows I watched, the movies I dreamed about, the stories that shaped my childhood.  I knew at a very young age I wanted to be a storyteller.    Stories are what shape our very existence, from religion to entertainment, stories are all around.  We are who we are because of the story we have told to ourselves.

When  I was pursuing a college career.  I was taking my generals with a focus on a digital film major.  The screenwriting class was being taught by a professor who clearly had all the credentials a professor needed.  Yet, when asked how many feature screenplays the screenwriting teacher had written.  The answer was, "currently in the middle of two feature length scripts"....  My mind started racing.  "Wait, I am sitting here in a class with a professor who is in the same boat as me?"   Well, whether my ego or stubbornness or both.  I didn't really finish the semester of college because... what was the point? 

Fast forward a few years and some amazing lessons that were taught.  I decided to leave that college career (and debt) to start finding a career by actually working on film sets and seeing how it is all done.  I can honestly say what I have learned.  100% of the film sets that I was on, I met more people who did not finish a college career in finding the career they wanted.  Which has led me to believe that: If you want to be an educator or a teacher... go to college.  If you want to work in a different field or line of work... go and apprentice or study under that line of work.  Very , very simple.

We have recently witnessed the mass hysteria that comes with mass shootings.  It always appears that time goes by, social media flaunts achievements, family drama posts, animal videos and then all of a sudden almost everyone throws their arms up about gun control and the need to avert the next mass shooting.  While, silently, many, many and many more are quietly killed through the mass production and greed of big pharma, that hardly and rarely gets quite the air time as does mass shootings.

I hope to not sound insensitive when it comes to mass shootings.  As I have stated prior, they are certainly a tragedy and a horrible circumstance in life.  However,  in my own personal story and life, I have witnessed many more taken by this plague of pills.  Plagues are silent in their destruction.  Yet, we can see the root of the problem is always greed.  You think the people responsible for creating these medications take them, themselves?  No way in hell they will.  They know what they can do and what they can do is big business.  

There are certainly other ways for treatment and healing the human body.  People tend to think that just because their is a medical symbol on something that is the only way.  It is not the only way.  Time has proven that.  Pills will certainly be the plague of this generation, because this generation has grown to want the most and quickest way to optimal health and we have been deceived on how to achieve optimal health.  "Take 35 of these pills each morning and you will achieve optimal health."

We are loosing are friends and family members in a society under "In money we trust"  We don't have "In God we trust" printed on our money for nothing.  We've been sold, bought and distributed.  It is my opinion that most of these mass shooters were on some sort of opioid trip that led them to the tragic consequence.  Unfortunately, it is easier to blame the tool for not working rather than the architect who built it.  There are rumors that Steve Jobs did not care for his children to have the technology that he was the architect of.  What does that say?   The same goes for the architects of these opioids.  Do they allow themselves or people they love to take them?  I would argue again, no way in hell.  So why should we? 

Be on guard, always.  It is a big pill to swallow when you understand that most people do not have you in their best interest.  On a positive note, we can fight this drug of disease and pill oppression by being their for others and letting laughter and love be the best medicine in our relationships.  I know I need more of that :)

It was evening. I remember spending some moments with my dog when I was 7 years old. Her name was Kissy and she was a german shepherd/chow mix. I absolutely loved that dog. Then my curiosity and boyishness would venture to the rain gutter, something to climb. I remember scurrying and sliding up the drain pipe. As it eventually became a slant where the drain pipe turned into the roof gutter, my weight seemed to make the aluminium creek. I remember hearing a cracking sound and then audibly saying "Ah oh".

Then, blackness.

What seemed to be a drunken stupor through our back porch in Leeds, Utah. I dazed my way through the back yard on the sidewalk and managed to make it to the back door. I somehow opened it and as I made my way in the the house on our brown shag carpet, there were only two steps up to the living room area from the back porch. I staggered inside. I remember one of my sisters saying "Daniel is acting weird again" as I collapsed onto the step, helpless, hurting, a complete sense of not knowing where I was.

Then, blackness.

I remember, being in the van and seeing the air vent to the air conditioner blowing on my face, lying on my mother's lap. Obviously I had been unresponsive as there was a rush to somewhere that my young mind could not comprehend.

I remember seeing bright lights (must be the ER room or maybe something else) My parents' have told me that I showed signs of concussion by throwing up, being un-repsonsive, etc. The next thing I remember is lying in a hospital bed, not wanting to watch television (which was what I had always done as a kid) because it hurt my eyes. My sisters walked in to see me. I was told they were my sisters and I said, "I have sisters?"

The next thing I remember is my home, with flowers and get well soon balloons. Not quite able to really take in the full effect of what had even happened to me.

Not a day goes by that I do not think to myself: What happened to me during those black out times? Those times that I just simply have no memory or recollection of?

But the thing is, is that , I am here now. Enjoying every bit of life and situation that comes at me! Loving this precious thing called experiences and moments.