The Ryan: Insights and Intimacy

We Are The Ryan. We exist to destroy Ourselves. To understand Ourselves. Destruction makes way for new Life, new growth. New essence. New We.

“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.” — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

We Are The Ryan. We Are the All becoming One, We Are the particle from which springs All. We Are the light and the dark within, We Are grey spiral and churning and form from void.

SPiRAL O)))

We Are the Enigma. We Are subjective, the voice you know. We Are everything you seek to understand. We Are the obscured, and the apparent. We Are pretense and irony and burlesque hyperbolic gravitas.

We Are paradox. We Are contradiction and absurdity. We Are as familiar as skin.

“Mike did not seem to grasp the idea of Creation itself. Well, Jubal wasn’t sure that he did, either — he had long ago made a pact with himself to postulate a Created Universe on even-numbered days, a tail-swallowing eternal-and-uncreated Universe on odd-numbered days — since each hypothesis, while equally paradoxical, neatly avoided the paradoxes of the other — with, of course, a day off each year for sheer solipsist debauchery.” — Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

We Are The Ryan. We Are irreverence and contempt. We Are the warm embrace of scorn. We Are the sarcastic smirk across the face of the world, We Are the blatancy of state-sponsored slaughter, We Are your voyeuristic thirst for televised lawless disregard. We Are your after-church programming.

---

We Are laughter at a funeral, we are a selfie in a coffin. We Are ever changing and fickle and impermanence manifest in SQUIRREL! We Are a strobe to heal your seizure and subliminal plastic advertizing. We Are on during the sporting event of the century!

We Are beer and brats and Sunday afternoon, We Are laughter drowning sorrow and a distraction from the dread. We Are hope and denial and a sunset behind a raincloud and beauty within the beast, the underlying and the disregarded and all the We as You wish to see but never remember how to find. We Are the uncomfortable Looking.

“He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances. He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a verb in the past tense.” — James Joyce, The Dubliners

We Are The Ryan. We Are the hooligan with a heart of gold. We Are the charming and the loyal and the overbearing and the suffocation. We Are the polished shit, the sweet-tooth addict-craving, the forbidden caramel apple and the last clinging tooth. We Are hillbilly chic. We Are the final confused joke after the laughter has long left.

We Are constant self-appraisal and the doubting trailing voice. We Are awkward sidelong clingings and the echoes of passed time. We Are voice given to scar, a sound bled dried and crusty, flaked desert parched sands and halite in your self-inflicted exploratory surgery.

Photo by Walter Freeman, Dec. 16, 1960 Howard Dully receiving his “ice pick” lobotomy Dec. 16, 1960

We Are the child hiding in a corner, the beaten and broken without will to escape. We Are the towering behemoth wielding pain internalized and compounded, formed and redirected. We Are an open wound, gaping, pungent. We Are what must heal from the inside, We Are the cotton-stuffed urgency of everything We never wished to see.

“The Dark Crow Man sits And stares into Oblivion… Into Cold… Into Nothingness. It’s snowing in His mind. He’s created Himself in His own Image.” — Lamb of God, The Subtle Arts of Murder and Persuasion

Artwork by Four Star Tattoo, Santa Fe, NM

We Are The Ryan. We Are the voice inside, loud. We Are the escaping breath of daring and uncertainty and doubt made whole, driven with guile and madness towards grasping, fickle fingers. We Are what must be said to make room for what comes next, for We Are the road traveled and the traveler, destination and journey and purpose and…

We Are The Ryan.

---

Legends abound concerning the origins of The Ryan. While the stories change with the seasons, reflecting the ever-evolving fears, prejudices, idols, and dreams of each new generation, a few things remain certain and confirmable.

The Ryan has been variously known as Ryan Scott Sanders, U.D., Scottie Shortpants, T.R. Sanders, Grizzly Padfoot, C.B. Sanders, Hey Fuckface!, Lunchbox Unlatchable, and Brian MacPherson. However, concerning his elusive disposition and penchant for trickery, this is by no means purported to be a comprehensive list.

At some point, perhaps during a period of understandable frustration and overwhelming madness, The Parents gave The Ryan over to be partially raised by chimpanzee crow farmers. Little observatory detail or information is known about this mysterious subset of primate culture. Little needs to be known. The existence and eccentricities that are manifest in The Ryan are explanation enough.

If you, or someone you know, has more historical information or knowledge concerning the origins and history of The Ryan, please…tell someone. If you see something, say something.