SOVEREIGNTY

We started building agreements with each other; who we are and what we're after.   Describing our animal.     And I think its so good to speak about those things, because when the words come out loud and vocal, they have an edge to them - sort of hold us accountable.   A lot of people don't ever talk about their dreams,  and I think that's why.    When we're scared of our own sovereignty..   then we never quite work up the courage to talk the manner that we'd like to... about the way we want to devour everything..  like we'd like to.    Sovereignty,  is the awakened mind.   Sovereignty is the (softly at first) speaking about our love.   Sovereignty is the brutality and the serenity that comes with acknowledging our innermost selves.       See your perspective through unencumbered eyes..   and become enchanted with what you (and only you) are witnessing.    Forget to edit and refine your dialogue..  until you've stripped away the fear and censorship from your language.. and finally, utterly, its just you, there, speaking your own version of life to anyone who dares listen.    

Andrew Tipton

The Hammock Philosophy

Create a space to observe and reflect upon the grace of life; upon the intelligence and sovereignty that envelopes our human-ness.     

Andrew Tipton 

Thoughts On Integrity

I believe our trueness as men has been hijacked a bit by external morality.
   If we are always functioning under the scrutiny of our culture's moral compass, then we are (reluctantly) bound and burdened by its idea of integrity, and not our own.  That's not to say that a culture even represents morality effectively,  but when we grow up believing that moral integrity is an external pressure.. then the culture's version is the only one we know or feel obliged to abide by.  
 Integrity is such a defining attribute of a man,  and yet it often only exists as an exterior motive...  something foreign, pressing coldly from the outside of us - never agreed to personally.    I believe when we are the origin of our own integrity / morality..  then it becomes something far more impressive -  it drives our attitude, it is malleable and open-ended.
 Self-driven integrity is us..  it cannot be undermined, rebelled against, escaped, wriggled away from - we are never free from it;  but neither are we burdened by its cumbersomeness or hijacked by its rigidity.     Our integrity should reverberate along the truest most admirable threads of our being.     Refining and agreeing to a personal morality should only deepen our sovereignty.   
Determining what self-driven integrity looks like:   we should hold dear the extraordinariness of being human!  Never settling for a lesser version of ourselves..   respecting and adoring our role on this delicious earth as human beings.   



Andrew Tipton

The Scorpion In Your Pocket

    What keeps us often from our most sovereign version..  are negative actions of old habits that feel slight and seemingly unimportant.     These slip by unnoticed, unreconciled time after time, and eventually we don't even notice them anymore.  They just seem normal..   like they've always been there gently tormenting and causing us grief    Daily traditions that are quietly stinging us with tiny doses of poison,  keeping us from an encompassing peace.  
Scorpions in our pockets.  
Bitter words towards a lover,  lingering sentiment of self-doubt, unwarranted distrust of a friend. 
We unnecessarily keep these habits alive..   their stings aren't killing us..  but they aren't making our experience more delicious.  
Empty your pockets.  






Andrew Tipton

ZEBRA vs. LION

Cherish inequality.  Cherish your sovereign version.
   As a collective culture, we have been fed this idea of an "equality"... that all men are equals, that no one is greater or less than anyone else.  That we all have the same worth.  That we are all of equal importance and grace and intellect.  That we should all be treated in the same way.     But it comes with a inherent fault... it creates this irreconcilable void between the people who are simply abiding on a basic level of their (naturally astoundingly breathtaking) humanity..  and those of us who want to elevate our version of ordinariness toward the extraordinary.   I think we are taught to diminish and frown upon people who claim their full capacity..  who embrace their sovereignty as humans.    Equality is the death of sovereignty.    In an attempt to embrace equal-ness, to externally validate the worth of people,  we are truly just devouring our own ambitious natures.      Equality wants people to feel good about themselves..  it wants us to believe that we are of equal value and worthiness.   But this idea ends up normalizing people.   It keeps us from moving forward as individuals...accurately accessing our own specific worthiness and assigning worthiness to ourselves -  not merely accepting the value that culture has handed us. 

   Everywhere I look these days,  I keep hearing about "inequality" -  it seems it has become this nasty word with a bad stigma.   People are up in arms..  claiming that "inequality" is somehow this vile threat,  a disease to our country's inherent goodness.     But the more I observe, the more I keep discovering that literally every shred of the world we live in is built from inequality.   Look anywhere.  Look everywhere.    Inequality (NOT simply diversity)  is the factor that separates and refines all matter on this earth.     There are huge inequalities..  beautiful, stunning, badass inequalities..   between plants, and animals (zebra vs. lion), and ideas, and sounds, and light, and color.  This planet runs (majestically) on the divisions created and expertly expressed through "inequality".    A world full on inequality is full of so much delicious variance!   A world full of inequality has large and littles.. strong and weak..  tall and small..  soft and hard.. intelligence and stupidity..   warmth and coldness.       In light of every other non-equal element on earth..  how can we culturally perpetuate this non-sense that somehow (despite everything illuminating the contrary)  that human beings are somehow bound lusciously together in some sort of "kumbaya soup" -   that we are all just as meaningful and important as everyone else?     

      This (very emotionally gentle) lie of "equality" is perpetuated by this very feel-good idea that people are all inherently of value.. that we are born into our value and it is somehow our due right!   This "equality" mentality..  believes that we must squish together and make ourselves comfortable and make ourselves palatable for one another.    It keeps us all "safe" by offering the protection of our equal-ness... and it keeps humanity from fulfilling its function as another (Very un-equal)  part of this (supremely) functioning planet. 


Cherish your Sovereign Version.  Do not tolerate a lesser version of yourself. 
 Cherish the (obvious) divisions between yourself and literally anyone else on earth.    Cherish what makes you "un-equal".    Grow that inequality.    Put a huge void between yourself and any part of humanity that does not desire to ingest and grow and devour life with integrity and passion.    Do not fear your sovereignty.    Bathe in intelligence.   Embrace your intellect and your strengths.   NEVER dull yourself or suppress your abilities -  for the sake of being palatable for the rest of humanity.   You are not equal to anyone..   you do not have intrinsic worth or value except that which you create and manifest (to your fullest extent).  
Do not stop becoming the most sovereign version of yourself.    



Andrew Tipton