Spiritless but Actually Not
by Kyle Mitchell

Twenty-two stories, alongside twenty-two stunning illustrations.

Monthly Goals

A young immigrant in Europe on the verge of homelessness starts a life-coaching business from his computer. His natural charisma lends itself to the activity. But at what point does charisma become sociopathy? Twelve days later (and thousands of dollars richer), his conscience is beginning to take hold. Why doesn’t he feel horrified for what he’s become? Who cares—just get the money, pay the rent, survive.

Circa 2011

A problematic teen has to watch the neighbors’ house while they’re out of town, so that, in the eyes of her mother she might “come of age” and “develop character.” Ironic then that she spends her time in the vacant home getting higher and higher, deliberately attempting to lose her mind so that all of suburbia might finally make sense. If she can just get back to the ignorance of childhood… But as she searches the empty house, room after room, suburban drywall and carpet unforthcoming—all she encounters is herself. Staring in the mirror once again, confronting the self-harm scars which dress her arms: Why am I unlike anyone else?

5 out of 5 fairies

This book is an experience all its own from start to finish. I’m not going to break down each story here (I don’t want to write an essay), but I will say, each story has its own unique vibe and style, and the formatting and font choices for each go a long way to adding to that (so print edition is the way to go). Oh – and be sure to read the footnotes and the notes at the back of the book – they’re important. The images really fit each story, and give you a bit of a preview of what you’re about to read. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about some of the stories that really stuck out to me.

Variegate Me Please I’m Begging You – the first story, and at first it was a little hard for me to read. Once I started reading it like I was listening to a poetry slam (even though it was prose), it was smoother, and I really enjoyed it from start to finish.

Devastatingly Self-Conscious – very relatable for anyone with severe social anxiety. This story somehow manages to completely capture that feeling.

I Don’t Really Fuck With Barthelme – by far the shortest story…unless you count the notes at the back. Interesting and unique way to tell a short story

There are plenty more stories, and I’ll leave you to discover them for yourself. Overall, I wasn’t totally sure what I was getting into at first, but I’m so glad I dived in head first and let the book take me on what ended up being a somewhat spiritual and philosophical journey from cover to cover.

I meditate a lot, and after each session I spend five minutes meditating on love, or compassion. For the planet, or someone in particular.

The more stupid shit I do during the day, the harder it is. The more emails I send, the more food I eat, the more social media I scroll through–the harder it is to authentically express that intention. Distraction, can’t focus, that kind of thing.

And with work lately–and the grind–the online author hustle which feels like dragging your bleeding and scathed identity across dirty asphalt, with no break and to no avail–all that, makes it more difficult.

In order to tap into that five minutes of loving kindness, trying to spread this vibration of kindness throughout the world–sometimes it’s easier if I just pick someone or something that I already love. Because if I’m trying to send love to the world, and I spend all day hating the world…

My mother’s been sick with a cold and a cough lately, I sent her some positive vibes. In meditation sometimes it gets very visual, very powerful. You can see, or feel, or sense in some way, where your energy is going–you can actually see that place where you’ve sent the loving energy, and how the energy affects it.

I had this visual of my mother–and this is strange, so bear with me–I had this visual of my mother’s body–I could see the skeleton within, and the heart beating, and the pathways of energy; and I could see the white light I was sending collecting around her lungs and her throat, up and down her spine… I’m sitting there meditating, too blasé for normal life, with this visual in my head–I’m engaged in this activity which at this point I’ve just just accepted as magical. Like, literally: magic.

But this is just a more extreme instance of what’s always occurring. Our thoughts, our intentions, where we send our energy–whether or not we’ve got an express visual for how it’s working doesn’t matter, we’re always affecting and creating reality by this process. So much of it, well almost all of it, gets lost in the daily grind of consumption and concern and status and career, etc., and we don’t even recognize our intentions (most of which are unconscious now, invisible), and the effect they’re having. We don’t recognize the magic that we’re practicing, we don’t recognize how we’re bringing about the reality which we experience.

Food for thought.

In other news, I’m driving up to LA tomorrow (I’m in SD at the time of writing this), to drop off copies and copies of my book randomly at little free libraries across the city. (You know, those little DIY standalone book cubbies you see in yards or at the park as you stroll.) I’m going to sign each book I leave, and maybe even write obnoxious little notes with a sharpie on the title page.

I think about the many incredible authors who’ve had seriously bizarre routes to publishing–James Joyce’s publisher burning the first printing of Dubliners out of embarrassment comes to mind… or conversely Kafka requesting his friend burn all his writing, rather than of course, publish it… I find stories like these hilarious.

I’ve considered, and I want some weird shit too, I want a little footnote when they retrospect in a hundred years.

“The author, so despondent, financed the printing of so many copies of his own book and left them strewn across that early 21st century dystopia, that edge of the Western world. And for who to read? Who would’ve, in a world characterized by incessant consumption, had even had the time to stop, look up, and recognize the book staring back at them, this thing to which they’d been led? And could they even know they’d been led? Would they ever acknowledge the invisible force, this unknown intention, which brings each face to face always with what is uncomfortable, neglected, but oh! so necessary…? And if they could acknowledge it, how many more lives would it take before they realized that that invisible force had just been the self, all along?”

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Kyle Mitchell grew up in Arizona. Existential exhaustion beneath panoramic sunsets, unable for one’s life to place the mystery of it all.