ZSG
1991—”Kentucky Fried Chicken” officially becomes “KFC”.
1997—”Scholastic Assessment Test” (previously “Scholastic Aptitude Test”) officially becomes “SAT”
2017—”ZSG” remains “ZSG”, but aims to mean something different than before. Officially, this flourish of initialism is a device to tell the story of this blog.
It began as “Zarathustra Smokes Grass”.
I used to smoke quite a bit of pot. I also used to read quite a bit of Nietzsche. I haven’t done too much of either recently, so it does not make sense to call it that anymore.
But, boy was I clever. Let me tell you why.
I had a job in a city called Pasto, which translates to “grass”. Before I’d begun, I knew I’d leave: I was undergoing something bigger in my mind, transforming as I made sense of sudden patterns of enlightenment. The town would be but a stage from which to launch.
But I inhaled too deeply. I was even moved. Twofold, at night I wrote and during the day I created (haphazardly) a kinder existence. Insofar as I kept rolling leaves of grass not just to smoke, but into the fold of my constitution, I became a better man. I worked, I wrote, and, as much as I inhabited an abstracted voice on this blog, I discovered many reasons to break the coldness of my Zarathustra.
Quite literally, what I did was help terminally ill people have a better day as I blogged about art, smoked pot, and created my voice. That is the big secret behind this, the first chapter of my life’s work. I wanted to learn to be a more virtuous person and I thought it was funny to call my ongoing spirit blog “Zarathustra Smokes Grass” and have no one understand why I was so wise to keep everything a secret of sorts.
But now I’ll say: I never wanted anyone to follow in my path: it was unplanned and emergent—a matter I needed to let unfold and discover myself. However, I did want everything I learned to be of service, which is why I wrote impossibly figurative prose and eventually fucking poetry.
I left the town. You might say (in Spanish) “Z se esfumó de Pasto”, which, in good conscience, I was no longer all that excited to do, but it was necessary. I hope to have left a mark other than a faint trail of acrid burn. (I did...it was spectacular.)
Eventually I stopped doing much of what I did before. “Smokes” turned to “smoked” and “grass” turned to yoga, or a greater awareness, or some other matter I had no pre-planned initial for.
Oh, God. Maybe that was it—from “grass” to some sort of everything there’s much less distance than I’d ever figured, if I did read my Whitman correctly (like a motherfucking sensualist atheist).
But I changed more.
That voice I’d found in the space I founded became muted. I’d done enough, clairvoyant as I’d been, and enough people took notice. I told everything the only way I could, in the language I saw fit for my purposes. I was tired and needed to evolve, but I never quite ended ZSG nor what it could mean. Eventually Tumblr tried to fuck me over, but let’s leave that aside. Anyhow... Given how I’ve changed, the original, extended name stopped making sense long ago. This is the reason why I’ve preferred for the blog’s title to remain a set of letters open to interpretation, even after I ceased to write here.
Now, I find myself facing a different world than the one I met when I started ZSG, one where nothing makes sense. I find myself with the need to question everything again. I find it is my duty to be incisive, to evoke the ghost of the voice with which I told of my own spiritual coming of age in order to respond to the new. Half-poetic, but less mad, with a clearer mind and with a duty: this is how I return. ZSG is open, once again.
What will I learn this time?
To be fearless. Until I die.
(hopefully not too soon).
