Recently this specific word has been buzzing around my mind.
Integrity is the overarching umbrella of the following traits:
• Honesty
• Accountability
• Fairness
• Courage
• Discipline
• Consistency
• Responsibility
• Maturity
• Respect
• Loyalty
• Empathy
• Humility
• Authenticity
• Wisdom
• Patience
• Self-awareness
If you tell me someone who has at least a few of those traits, and I’ll say that’s a good person to keep around. Nowadays it’s seldom anyone can barely can get through the first two.
Integrity is something I pride myself in. Mindfulness is what my mom taught me, and mindfulness is something that is also needed in each of those points.
Some people think that this is something that is practiced. I think it’s actually something you choose to become. Like a switch. It just clicks and starts to all tie in together. I don’t think there’s really any turning back either. Least not for me.
Sometimes people think that they might be loyal, or responsible, and even consistent – but when you think about it, it’s only selectively.
A lot of people in 2025 choose connivence over integrity.
It’s a facade. A mask. All pretend. They only act like they have these traits to make themselves look a certain way and feel better about themselves.
That’s why self help books always irked me.
Right now I’m finally picking up the book, “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. And I have to say – it’s a bunch of pretty common sense stuff.
Yes, get rid of the old things you don’t use, they carry a lot of energy. Yes, have the artist dates – do the thing you love. Nurture that little inner kid. That’s what keeps you sane.
I guess maybe as an only child, I always nurtured my inner kid. I always had to.
A walk in the park. Exploring the woods. Riding my bike. Knocking on a friend’s door. Playing an old cassette and dancing in the living room. Making art. Making more art. And losing track of time late into the night, making even more art.
You really need a self help book to find yourself? How lost is the collective world? I’m struggling to find the culprit of this world’s suffering.
I think it all boils down to a few things. Discipline, self respect and a little childlike imagination.
——
I have been subscribed to this email newsletter for a few years. It’s to a graffiti site where the owner refreshingly writes some thought provoking blurbs.
He wrote this recently:
“I used to do this practice every day, but somehow forgot about it. Every morning, I would go outside and think about being grateful for the things in my life that were difficult and/or stressful. The thing about hard times is that’s where you grow the most.
Just like building muscles needs resistance, so do our minds. Hard times create mental toughness that helps you get through even harder times. The other thing I found is when I focused on being grateful for the difficulties, things felt a little lighter.
Rather than being bothered by stress, it reframed it as something that is a necessary part of life and growth. I’ll have to get back to this practice.”
— Bus
PS: If you ever want to revisit some of these messages all in one place, they’re all on a blog here:
https://machinestudio.com/blogs/letters-from-bus
——–
Thanks, Bus.
Sometimes more can be said in a few blurbs than a whole self help book. It’s crazy how people search for this help in books, in other struggling people, – frequently in baristas and bartenders, and the other day, I witnessed a guy with his personal trainer at the gym do absolutely no consistent weights or workouts, but rather – just yap it up. Maybe that was the training.
Yea, there’s a time and place. Yet people are so desperate for a sense of belonging and community, they reach at any opportunity.
Funny how I’ve always wanted community – but the belonging part never seemed to be an itch I cared to scratch. I guess it sort of became an after thought. A result of a good community.
And the world lacks that now.
Sure there are plenty of communities. But do they act with integrity? Are they truly good communities? Hah. Skate community comes to mind. Los Angeles comes to mind. A big melting pot of people who want to be connected, yet struggle due to consistency. I think it’s the thing where small towns really get their charm. The energy of the collective.
I respect the hustle culture in LA, don’t get me wrong. The opportunities are bountiful. In any case, intentional or not, everyone is so focused on theirselves, forgetting to not just aknowledge, but respect the varying degrees and complexities of others around them.
And I think this hyper driven isolation affects the psyche. On one hand, you’re tough for grinding so much, but there’s the chance to also overthink things which neglect and overstimulate that inner child.
So with hyper driven isolation, we all go out into the world to try and connect. Like a rabid dog. Scared and giving off a sense of uncertainty.
On the outside it’s cool, calm and collected. But on the inside it’s tired and needing some sort of external warmth from the world around us.
Mental toughness as Bus mentioned, is a really interesting thing to pinpoint.
Hard times create mental toughness, he said.
So the act of living in this life, in this place, is actively building all of our mental toughness. Even if we can’t quite explain what’s going on. We feel it.
So put down that 5th self help book.
Discipline, self respect and a little childlike imagination.
Everything else will come to you. You’re just in the building stages of the mental toughness.
Everyone will gather round the fireplace soon enough.
❤
Scandalous Lifestyle, Revised 