Have you ever known anybody who's lost everything? Maybe once upon a time they had it all. But then, this happened or that happened—they did this they did that, and they ended up with nothing.
 
Actually, hopefully, you've never had to witness that take place in anybody's life. And certainly, hopefully nothing like that ever happened to you. But, look around, there is so much homelessness all over the place. People who once had a good job, a decent life, now living on the streets in various formats.
 
Here in cities like L.A., the homeless crisis has gotten really-really bad. I just saw a news report on CNN where they were interviewing people living on the streets and those who are trying to get them off the streets. In at least one case, in that report, a guy had been on the streets for twenty-two years. And, had no plans of leaving. Sure, a lot of these people are driven to the streets by a mental illness or drug use. But, that does not change the reality of the reality.
 
I suppose we can blame the condition of the drug addiction at least somewhat on the drug addicts themselves. But again, that does not change what is taking place. And, from this, all the world is left with is a lot of people with lives that are totally destroyed.
 
Sometimes I see homeless people sitting on bus benches or just wandering around. I often wonder what are they actually doing with their life? I mean, for most of us, we have jobs to go to, we have work to do. We come home and take care of our families. We do what we need to do… Yeah, we may not like everything we have to do. But, we have something to do nonetheless.
 
But, these people with no home, many of them having absolutely no jobs, nor desiring to get one, what do they do with their days? Doesn't that just mean that their entire life adds up to nothing? I don't know, every time I see one of those individuals, just sitting around doing nothing, it sends me to wondering.
 
But again, back to the point, have you ever known anybody who has lost everything. Sadly, I've known a couple people that has happened to.
 
An ideal example is, I think back to this one guy I used to know. He lived in the apartment building that I lived in while I was going to college. He had a job. He had a really nice 1962 T-Bird. And, he was making a pretty good living.
 
What happened next was kind of one of those things that nobody could have predicted. Him, and a number of the other people that lived in my apartment building, decided to all rent a big ranch house together in Tarzana. It was really a nice house. It had a lot of property. And, not unlike many ideologies that grew out of that era, this group of people decided to come together and live together.
 
I'm sure I've told this story before, in some place, in some way, in some time… But, as we all were friends, they asked me to move in with them, as well. I guess, thankfully, I could read the tea leaves, and I knew it was not going to be as great of an experience as everybody was anticipating. So me, I just stayed in my apartment.
 
Sure, I went over and hung out with them all of the time. We were all friends; right? But then, one day, they had all turned in their rent to this one guy who was kind of the rent keeper/banker of the household. What did he do? He took the money and ran. Leaving all of them stranded with no money, and soon being forced out of the house.
 
Some had families to go to. A side story is, this guy actually bailed on his wife, as well. Left her there all alone. Yeah sure, she was having sex with myself and other people on the side. But???
 
She, who was a dental hygienist, working for her father who was a dentist, got to move back into the family home. Everybody else, however, was left on their own. A couple of them, got some money from their family and grabbed another apartment. Plus, they already had pretty good jobs.
 
One or two moved back East to where they had originally come from after their family sent them money to get home.

My one friend, his wife who was also a housemate, left him because he had hooked up with an x-biker check who got kicked out of the MC for some reason, who had found her way into the house. Anyway, as he put it, he was in love with her. I drove him and her up to the mountains above Bakersfield, where his father lived. His father, a crazy old long-haired mountain man who had a thirteen year old girlfriend. But, I won't get into that here.

I think it's pretty clear. In other words, don't move into a commune. It never works out well.

But, this one guy—the guy that I am talking about, he planned to stay in L.A. He ended up selling his ‘62 T-Bird for much less than he'd hoped to get for it. Then, I stopped seeing him. He kind of faded away to nowhere.
 
A couple of years later, I was driving to Vegas. I stopped off in Barstow, as is the common plan. I gassed up, grabbed something to eat from the drive-through McDonald's, in association with my two large cups of coffee that I used to like to get from that location. And, just about when I was on my way, a guy walks up to me as I was about to pull out of the driveway. There he was, my one-time friend from long ago. I guess he didn't recognize me? But, I certainly recognized him.
 
As his story goes… …The story he told to me… He said he'd fallen on hard times and wondered if I could give him a couple dollars. Of course, I reached into my wallet and slipped him at twenty. Then, I drove off. Hoping that I had helped his life just a little bit. This, once thriving individual, who had one thing lead to another on him. Now/then, he was broke and homeless, and stuck in Barstow, California.
 
Whatever became of him, I obviously have no idea. But, this is just one example of what can happen to a life. And, how some people can become homeless.
 
I think back to my Zen Filmmaking brother, Donald G. Jackson. As I've said in many places, he was the greatest squanderer of money I have ever met. He literally burned through millions of dollars in his lifetime. Doing this, while leaving his family, when he died, completely penniless. Had his daughter not purchased a small shack out in Joshua Tree a few years before his death, his wife would have had nowhere to live, as they were soon evicted from the house they had lived in for twenty years after his passing. This, while Don had bought his girlfriends an untold number of Boob Jobs, paid the rent for the apartments for many of them, all while spending money like there was no tomorrow. Again, just an example of what can happen to a person out of nowhere or based upon the lifestyle they choose to live.
 
I had this dream the other night… I had gone off with some people and we ended up somewhere in one of those dream landscape sort of places where there was a lot of water. It was a very lush, river filled environment. Yet, it was still urban. For some reason, we got separated, me and my people. I found myself trying to walk back to my hotel, via a lot of obstacles. You know, the whole dreamscape thing.
 
At one point, I ask this person, (a dream associate), and I was pointed in the direction of my hotel. I was told it was a seven mile walk in a certain direction.
 
When I finally got there, to my hotel that is, I was informed that I was no longer checked in, and all of my possessions had been discarded. Again, all based in a dream environment.
 
There I stood, wondering what I was going to do next. I had no money, no cel phone, and my passport was gone. I stood there, in my dream, trying to figure out what to do next. My thoughts were to go to the American embassy and call somebody. But, I couldn’t remember anyone’s number to call for help. I stood there lost in dream-time, wondering what to do next???

Luckily, I woke up right then. It was all just a dream. Thankfully! But, it did make me think about life and how things can really take you over—take you over very quickly.
 
I'm sure any of you Negative Nellys’ out there will read all kinds of nonsense into that dream. But, at least the truth of the truth is, it was just a dream. And, as many dreams do, it did provide me with some deep insight, and some thoughts about the thoughts of life
 
For many of you out there, you have a very strong family. And, that's really important!  Because, if you're like someone like me, with no blood relatives, if anything negative were to happen to me, I'd seriously be SOL.
 
Well, I guess I do have some blood relatives. It's just that after my father died back in ‘68, they all broke ties with my mother and me. So, I've never seen or heard from any of them since that point in time. It's not like I'm a hard guy to find. So, that's all on them… But, before I get too far off track…
 
I believe it's really important to establish yourself as well as you can. Don't be like my friend Don who just blew through money until he had none left. Then, he died, leaving his wife relatively stranded. Or, like the one once-upon-a-time friend I told you about, who believed he could make something of himself, but ended up homeless.
 
I think for most of us, our dreams and our hopes are pretty simple. But, on the other side of the issue, I know here in Hollywood, (for example), it has been the longstanding promise of human demise. Demise, for those who chase their dreams here. Meaning, you really gotta be careful about what you dream about, and what you do to actualize that dream.
 
This all takes us back to the point of life. You really need to be as stable as you can be. …Holding on to that stability, even though it may not provide you with the promise of the promise of that promise you dreamed of receiving. Never let yourself go All In. Because, if you do, you may be All Out.
 
Just something to keep in mind as you pass through the days of your life.
 
Remember, it's really easy to lose everything. And, if you have no one to back you up, due to the bad deeds you've done, due to the drugs you take, due to the promises you chase, due to the people you believe in, due to the money you've spent, you may end up all alone and on the street, sitting on a bus bench, thinking about nothing but nothing, and wasting the rest of your life.