If you watch Common Ground online, consider becoming a member or making a donation at lptv.org Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people November 4th, 2008. Music Hello, my name is Lou Samsa and I'm playing guitar at the Lucky Moose in Walker. Music When I do perform these songs, as far as my thinking goes, I want to play these songs with lots of emotion, with feeling. When you know a song well, you can play with much more feeling. If you don't know it as well as you should, then you're worried about what the next phrase might be or exactly that next chord. And then that takes away from the feeling of music. To me, I can't explain the feeling I get out of music when I play. It's wonderful. Sometimes I literally almost fall out of my chair. I'm so excited about it. So I know I'm very sensitive.  And I think that shows in my playing. I think we all have this potential to feel this, but that's one thing I never did figure out for sure. Do we all have the capacity to feel music emotionally? Because sometimes you see people play, they might play one note and it might be like this. Just one note. They're feeling that note. And then you get another guy that's just sitting there kind of stone faced. So I don't know what he's feeling. And that's the saying that you hear many times. You can always tell a player just he might only play one note, but it reflects that emotion is there. I've been teaching guitar for about 50 years. I actually started playing guitar when I was 11 years old. I'm 65 now. So I've been doing this since the dawn of man. But I got introduced to music and guitar. Probably when I was a little kid, when I was like about fifth, sixth grade, I used to listen to Elvis Presley and the Beatles. And that really got me motivated. And I remember learning songs and singing along with them. And I remember getting myself worked up into tears. There was something about music, especially these particular songs by Elvis and the Beatles and Ricky Nelson for that matter. But initially, there was something very moving about music. I knew there was something there, even though I didn't take it seriously. I loved it, but I had other interests that I followed. You know, whether it was sports or what have you. In fact, when I went, decided to go to college, I didn't think I was going to be a guitar major or going to music at all. I actually wanted to become an elementary teacher. And so here I'm at college at Bemidji State University. I'm actually from the Iron Range, from a town called Chisholm. But I came here to college, majoring in elementary education. And after two years, I decided to quit college and move back home and start a band with one of my friends. I moved back to Chisholm, and I started a band there. And we were together for about two years. And we were playing in some of the bars around. I was making some money. But the guys in my band weren't quite as serious about it as I was. So I decided to go back to college and finish my degree. But meanwhile, when I was in college, I met another guitar player. Actually, he was a bass guitar player. And so we started another band. And so here I am in Bemidji, going to school, but also playing this band on the side. And at that time, we were again playing on the weekends. But meanwhile, I met a guitar player that moved into town here in Bemidji. Actually, his name was Kevin Daly. And I took lessons with him for a good year. And he basically changed my life. After I was with him for that year, I realized that I wanted more of this guitar business. So I still finished my elementary degree. And I also took up music. Now, at the time, they didn't have a guitar major here. So I had no choice but to do voice, because you have to pick an instrument. So I chose voice. So I ended up getting a degree in vocal and elementary. Not to mention, I was qualified to teach driver education. And I even have a degree in piano technology. After I finished my degree in music and elementary education, I was substitute teaching around town for a while. And I actually was tuning pianos in town. But there was something about that guitar that was always beckoning me. It was always after me. So before you know it, I started other bands. And I was always playing in bands. I got to the point where I actually quit tuning pianos, which monetarily was probably not the wisest decision, because it was a very good income doing that. But my guitar was always calling me. So I ended up actually teaching guitar here in Bemidji. Kevin Daly, my guitar teacher that got me into all this, he was teaching guitar at a little music store here in Bemidji called the Melody Shop. Now, Kevin actually moved back to Minneapolis. And when he left, he got me the teaching job at the Melody Shop. So I actually started teaching guitar at the Melody Shop, where I was at for 18 years actually. So I was always able to make a living teaching guitar lessons, which I love by the way. I love teaching one-on-one. And also playing in bands. So that's how I was able to make my living, just teaching guitar and playing in bands. And I've been doing that for a long, long time. It's been about 36 years, because after the Melody Shop closed here, I went right to Overbeaks. And so I was at the Melody Shop for 18 years, and then I had Overbeaks now for about 18 years. So just this passion I have. But the interesting thing is, as time was going on, I was always kind of thinking I was good. But then with the computer, I did get on the computer and actually scope out some guitar players that actually taught guitar online, great jazz guitar players, and they actually brought the world to me. I realized that was way behind. Way behind. So right now I actually practice about two to three hours every day. And I've been doing this now for about maybe three years now. So my playing is getting better. I am improving. It's still a joy. I love it. I just wish I had the passion to do 10 hours a day, which great players do. You know, it's a lifelong commitment. It's hours and hours. And my hat goes off to the people that can do that. But what can I say? It is beautiful, even if you do a little bit. About a year ago I played at the Lucky Moose Bar and Grill in Walker, Minnesota, which I actually do now as a musician. I play at restaurants, and I play at weddings and at the Forest Edge Winery and Rutgers, different places like that. I do a solo performance, and I play a variety of music. In fact, I like to refer to myself as eclectic electric. I play a little bit of country, a little jazz, some blues, a little rock, a little bit of classical, just a little variety of music, which I love, because it brings out different emotions in me. Before I did the solo stuff, I played in bands for 35 years straight, basically, pretty much every weekend. But it wasn't until I was about maybe 55 years old where I started doing solo, solo work, which I really love, probably because it's enough to just take care of myself, let alone worrying about three or four other bandmates. I've got plenty to worry about with just me. But I will say that, being a solo guitarist, you really have to know your songs well, because when you play in the public, you never know who's there, there might be some music professors there, there might be people with cameras there, and I've learned in the past that I didn't know my songs as good as I should have. Because there's more pressure that's involved, and it's easy to mess up. But I know this about myself, that if I really dig in and practice like you should, you get to the point where you know that song so well that even if you get distracted, the song can still flow because this muscle memory and it's so locked in your head that even though you get distracted a little bit, you don't fall apart. You can just keep it going. So for myself, I'm sure everybody's different, for myself if I know the song real well, that gives me the confidence, and when I have the confidence, I have no problem. Now some of the venues I perform at, the people are just eating, drinking, talking, so their undivided attention isn't really on me. So it's more laid back of an atmosphere, which relieves a little pressure, but you've got to remember that while people are eating, they still look over and they listen. And I guess my goal is if it feels good to me, I'm assuming it feels good to the audience. I think we're all human beings, and I think they can tell if you love something and it feels really good for you, I think they can pick up on that. So right now I still teach private guitar lessons, still at Overbeaks, and also at Bemidji State University, where I'm an adjunct instructor, and I still do my solo guitar work. And so this is what I do for a living, and it's wonderful. I've always loved sharing what I know, and I still love doing it to this very day. I love teaching guitar. When I give lessons, I'm hoping that the person would like to make guitar their career. This is the way I teach. I don't fool around. I'm not demanding. I don't get upset if they don't practice. All I can do is try to inspire them, get them excited about guitar, because you can actually make a living whether you play in the military or if you're a studio guitarist or if you play in a band or if you teach private guitar. There are a lot of venues, options to make a living playing guitar. So as an instructor, I enjoy watching my students grow. Actually, they pass me up. And I remember one of my earlier students from years ago, who practiced 10 hours a day. He passed me up in three years, and I remember that was kind of hurtful for me, to pass me up. I had played for 25 years and he passes me up in three years. And he went on to move to New York, a great guitar player. Actually, his name is John C. from Bemidji here. So as time went on, I had others that basically did the same thing. So now it's enjoyable to watch my students pass me up, and I can only wish them the best for high levels of success. I would like to encourage everyone to at least study some instrument. I am a believer that if you study an instrument, I think that carries over into all areas of your life. I think that will just make you a better person. I think you'll be able to achieve higher levels in any other field just by studying music, because it's so completely involved with your whole body, your mind, the physicality, the emotional. I highly recommend everybody to study music. As far as unlocking some potential in my students, as far as their guitar playing goes, it's wonderful to see the little light bulbs go off in their eyes when they can start creating music. I love when I see a student grow, but I have to say we don't all grow at the same levels, and I think the accomplishments and feeling of certain people are just going to be higher. That's life. Sometimes you're actually married to your instrument. That's the kind of a commitment some people make. I've had students that were on their way and they actually decided to fall in love with somebody, which is great. But I will say their guitar playing went bye-bye, and I'm married. I've got three kids and it's been awesome. I was able to manage everything. So I've been blessed to have a wonderful family and my wonderful guitar. If that works for you, great. But some people can't have both. I mean, if they really want to get to that high level. If they just want to play a few chords and have fun for the rest of their life, that's fine. But, you know, as far as that commitment to get to those higher levels, boy, sometimes we might have to make that very difficult decision. Whether you want to play guitar or do you want to get married or not? Because some people will tell you that instrument is... you're married to it. What can I say? If you're interested in learning how to play your guitar at a higher level, or if you're interested in hiring me to play at a special function, you'll find me in the Bemidji phone book, Lewis Samsa. I think the audience actually appreciates seeing somebody live working at their craft. It would be like myself when a plumber comes over to my house and I'm watching him. I admire that, or a mechanic, or a carpenter. I think it's wonderful to watch somebody that knows what they're doing. I admire, I respect it. And I think that the audience for musicians is the same. I guess what I would say in a nutshell is that you can find art in everything and in every one and in every occupation. Period.


Very interesting topic this morning. That's something that has always fascinated me and Yes, a lot of these disorders these Mental health issues They have always fascinated me Pretty much my entire life because I've always been pretty normal as a person I behave in such a normal way. I Respond the correct way. I mean, I'm not perfect at the course. I have ups and downs sometimes But all of these things that are going on in the world, of course, they do fascinate me and one of the things that really is a phenomenon in today's world and something that really fascinates me a lot is The topic of stalking Because as many of you may know, yes, I have been a target a victim of stalking in Many situations throughout my life where for no reason at all people just want to come after me because That's the reality of it. There is No justification for stalking. I Mean unless someone is stolen something That belongs to you. Of course, that's a completely different situation altogether like if someone Stole your money or a material possession Of course naturally you're gonna want to go after them and get it back But you're gonna do it the right way You're not gonna go running out like a vigilante, of course You might do it there through the police or through the courts, but even that as we know All of these things are run by narcissists, but yes Do narcissists become stalkers Overnight No, of course not It's not so much to do as you as you think You may think that For whatever reason they have this attachment to you, they can't let go And then that turns them into a stalker But nope in actuality They were already like that all along They already had that tendency within them And this is probably something that they've learned in childhood Where they didn't have a strong attachment to their parent or caregiver They Didn't feel that bond It's like something was missing. They were deficient in something and because of that They're forever Chasing after it for the rest of their lives As you can see it in the way that they parentify you They hold you up to be their parent or caretaker this person to make things right this person to Regulate their emotions by Be in this I'm playing this actor this role that they want you to play Where it's like you're constantly in this theater And it's like one minute you have to be happy you have to smile at the next minute sad Then you're crying Then you're excited And you they just have to run through run you through all of the different emotions Which to be quite Honest they should have experienced that in their childhood And of course I'm not saying that if you did experience those things in your childhood from your parent or caregiver But now you should just never experience that again And you just have to be completely emotionless and everyone else around you needs to be that way as well No, of course not But it's not going to become this obsession Where it affects your daily life and you're going out of your way just to get that response Which is what these narcissists do of course as we know as We know So now they do not become stalkers of a night of course not this is something That has been going on with them for a very long time and it will continue to Be that way That's not going to change because they don't know how to resolve it in their minds So they're always going to be like that They're always going to be that way where they Going out trying to seek a response from you because again That is not a completely bad thing. That's not something to be ashamed of if you are seeking Even attention validation from other people. It's what you're using it for But the way they do it, it's completely different. They're seeking it in a way Where this defines themselves how they see themselves their entire reality is just based on your response your view of things Now that's That is not healthy at all But this is how they operate this is how they function This is how they do things Go Nala here enjoying the balcony. She likes to see the view, but I have to watch her sometimes when she Pokes her head out of there as you can see it's a long way down. So yes This is what they do and this is what they were destined to do because they always had a tendency to do that and I mean it is Pretty obvious when you look at it What are they? Doing their stalking They're trying to get from a to b So they're clearly trying to achieve something From dealing with you They're trying to get something out of you And I don't know what that might be it could be a response it could be your validation Maybe they want something from you. It could be your money a Lot of times it is something Sexual that you've riled up inside of them But at the same time they feel like it's something they're never going to have and that is why they become stalkers Well, they're just constantly on your case Because they've they've already made it up in their minds. They know all right. I Know I accept there is nothing that I can do to change this situation There is nothing that I can do to get the result that I want So what I'm going to do is I'm going to become a stalker And I'm going to try and pin this person down and force them to do What I want them to do or to feel what I want them to feel Yes, believe it or not. That is what is going on in their minds That's why it's all of this coercion. It's all force And sometimes it's intimidation if they can't attract to entice you in the way that they would like Or if they they think they can't do that But yeah, a lot of this it does really come from low self-esteem insecurity because I Know in myself when I look at myself on my own mind If I want something of course, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna get it I'm not gonna force anyone to do something. They don't want to do I'm not gonna come around like a creepy little guy Not making my intentions obvious Of course, it is on the other person whether or not they're able to receive that Based on whether or not they are secure within themselves But other than that For me, no, I don't need to be a stalker at all If I want something I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna get it And of course that doesn't mean I have to develop this grandiose sense of entitlement where I can have anything I want No, of course not If I want something from another person and it's something that does not belong to me And of course it is up to the other person whether or not I can have it But if I can't have it, I just have to accept it That does not mean that I'm gonna become a stalker That doesn't mean that I'm gonna be constantly on their case In fact, I'll just do the opposite. I'll just leave them alone and completely forget about them and I probably won't even have a single thought about them for the rest of my life Knowing that they do not want me or desire to have Whether it's a future with me, it could be something short too and whatever it is Knowing that they don't want or desire anything to do with me It's so easy. Just cut them off because I'm assuming that's exactly what they want, but of course as we know there are a lot of weirdos out here where Yes, they secretly want and desire you But they're also on this ego trip Whereas like you have to get down on your knees and you have to validate them and do all of this crazy stuff when In a lot of these situations that actually doesn't matter what you do in an attempt to please them you can do Everything exactly how they want you to do you can jump through all of the hoops and They will still Reject you and turn it around as your your the creepy one your the stalker When in fact I can tell you that in a lot of these situations they wanted you all along as well but it was more fulfilling more satisfying for them to Switch it around on you and to cut you off and to make you feel like you're nothing It was more satisfying for them to do that because they look at you If you're a person like me you have this kind of attitude where it's like Yes, if I want something I am going to go out and I'm going to get it If you have that type of mentality a Lot of people they're not going to like you because they don't have that type of mentality Of course there's things that they want but they're not going to go out and get it And of course you can see that but the way they treat you when they do desire or want something with you and Yet they still reject you and this is part of the problem with a lot of them because yes They want something from you, but they can't get over their own egos their own feelings of self-importance, which is actually a compensate for their insecurities and deficiencies and because they can't get over that even though they do want something with you They will reject you and then they will become stalkers voyeurs Where they are secretly watching you and then they're trying to egg you on to become an exhibitionist because that's what they really want And I find that really sad They really do These voyeurs and you know we there's a lot. There's a lot of these people out there these days these cucks They have this fetish and they genuinely enjoy Just watching They get off on that I bet Sorry if this offends anyone, but I want to say the truth. I bet a lot of them Would honestly get off on just Watching you have sex with someone else Or even just you masturbating by yourself I Genuinely believe that a lot of them would get off on that a lot more Than actually doing it with you themselves And yes, this is another thing that fascinates me something that I could never understand Because for me It is far more Satisfying to share it with another person It really is instead of just watching them with someone else or Having to do it on my own Yes, for me it is far more satisfying to have that connection and To know that Someone else wants it someone else is enjoying it just as much as I am as well But for these types of people It's almost like it becomes a fetish to them after a while And I'm talking about this based on my experience what I've seen from people Who have been stalking me for a very long time. It's almost like They all might automatically know that you're going to resist them and they actually get off On that resistance It doesn't do anything for them To have you in a position with them Where you both let that go and just Whatever's going to happen happens Just to let it play out by chance to let it play up naturally that doesn't do anything for them And yes, of course, this is the result of childhood trauma And Yeah, it's really bad. It's not healthy at all. You're not supposed to desire these types of things You are meant to desire the exact opposite intimacy connection vulnerability not shutting yourself off and Finding pleasure In resisting someone finding pleasure And making someone resist you But you know what? I think that's actually not what they want. It's just a lot of times It's either them and they don't know how to let go of their resistance Maybe they feel like they don't deserve it. Maybe they know they're not really going to enjoy it or Maybe they think that no matter what they do, you're going to resist them because you're not really attracted to them Because they already know that you want something else or something more So even in those situations, they already know that even if they did give it to you Yes, it might make you feel good, but it's not going to be fulfilling for them because they already know that You're still going to be desiring something with someone else Yes, I understand this topic is very confusing and Yeah, it's something that's fascinated me for a very long time because of course I do look at people in situations and I wonder Why can't you just get it together? Why can't you just let that go? There's need to be important. There's need to be superior You don't want to get triggered.  I'm not afraid of being vulnerable I'm not afraid of letting go of my pride and ego and connected to my soul Because when you do that, when you connect to your soul rather than your ego It does not even matter if you get rejected It doesn't matter if no one wants you, it doesn't matter if the entire world turns against you None of that matters at all When you connect to your soul rather than your ego Because yes, it is your ego that has this need to feel important And then you are going to be very sensitive to criticism and rejection So I think that pretty much wraps it all up The issue that these people have is it's their ego This need to feel important and honestly I think it's because Some trauma in their childhood, maybe they got rejected By someone like you before And they don't want that to happen again. Now they want to be on the other end of it And not only that, but I genuinely believe that a lot of these people actually could not even experience it I genuinely do believe that, that they can't experience these things in the way that we can And it makes a lot of sense when you think about it because you don't have that same level of Sensitivity When you're connected to your ego Rather than your soul When you connect to the soul everything is so much more Fulfilling when you raise a vibration You just look at things and I've had this experience myself many times It's like you just You look at the trees and the birds and it's like wow everything is so beautiful Everything's so amazing. It's almost like you've smoked in a joint But you haven't it's more of a natural vibe to it It doesn't feel bad or wrong But guess it is that sensitivity that they're missing and the reason why they're missing it is because they can't be vulnerable And they can't be vulnerable because they're too much connected to their ego and their pride Rather than Their soul and just being themselves Because that's pretty much it when you're connected to your ego Rather than your soul Then you're not being yourself You're not being yourself at all and not being yourself It's not attractive to normal real people So naturally that will make us resist And when we are resisting it Maybe sometimes we're just trying to make a joke of it. We're trying to just laugh at it We're just trying to tell the other person. Yes, just let your head down. Yes, just be yourself Maybe then we can actually connect. Maybe then this will be something that I don't resist It may actually be something that I do want but try Getting these types of people to understand that Because no matter what you try and do with them, it's not going to work. You try and tell them Oh, you just have to connect to your soul rather than your ego. Just Don't think about it too much. Don't ever think You just assume that everything is going to be okay. You're not going to get hurt You know what analysis is going to think automatically Oh, you're trying to manipulate me You're trying to get went over on me. You're trying to cheat me You're trying to lead me down the wrong path so you can get something out of me at my expense Like I said, there's just nothing you can do with them There really isn't you can try It's just not going to work They have it set in their minds that They're not going to get the result they want by letting things go By letting things play out by chance.   I am just going to put it out there and say A lot of these people they put track devices in your car They're watching you through the cameras in your phone your laptop your computer Even cameras in your home apartment wherever you live Maybe even cameras in your car and they're listening on all that of your microphones and your devices as well So yes, they are constantly watching you and these things are kind of The obviously they're bringing them some level of gratification To where it develops into addictions Because if it didn't they wouldn't even do it in the first place They're not going to keep doing something that makes them feel bad So that is how you already know that yes, they are shame-based people We're doing everything they can to avoid reflecting on their shame And that is why whenever you come around them You always feel ashamed of yourself as though you're doing something bad or wrong because they're deflecting their own shame onto you When in actuality what you're doing is not wrong at all What you're doing is fine And yes, they do feel the shame and they also feel that They're not really getting what they want from you. Yes, they do want more and that is why they're constantly on your case Because if it really was that satisfying for them, maybe they'd stalk you once a month once a year Clearly they're not getting off in the way that they were like because I'm sure Stalkers in your situation. They're on you every day.  You just want something real And that's the problem. That's something to shame you for it's like ha ha and you can't get what you want No, you need to turn that around and see You are the ones who are bad. You are the ones who are crazy You are the ones who are wrong Because all I want is something normal something real And you need to put it out as though yes to be honest If you haven't got that then I don't want it or at least It's got to be something that it's just in the moment kind of thing I mean that that's really the only way that you can survive in these worlds These realities that they create Is by at times taking that blue pill And just letting go of your resistance to the fake world And to all of these false characters that you're surrounded by and just being like okay, we've got one night One hour whatever it is maybe a couple of days if you can last that long Let's just do what we're going to do, but we're both going to get something out of it. So, you know, let's just Cooperate in this instance And yeah, sometimes it kind of work like that Where you do delve into the fantasy yourself I mean, of course I've spoke about this in my past videos Fantasy is not bad Imagination is not bad It can actually be very healing It can help you Just don't like it. Just don't let it Overwhelm you and take over you to the point where you Begin to act these things out in reality because that's the problem I mean if you're imagining these things in your mind It's not so bad I mean, we're getting into like fetishes and sexual fantasies now. It's kind of like Where do we draw the line? And that all depends on your own self-control and discipline and you should know yourself. It depends if you know who you are And if you're able to control yourself because You know, I understand a lot of these things These are things that I actually have no interest in myself But of course I'm aware of it That yes, there are these things and they're actually very popular these days as well Got like 50 shades of gray BDSM And there's things where they they tie people up. They chain them And what else? There's even great fantasies as well For both men and women, you know, it's on both sides I mean, there's all of these different kinds of things And Yeah, that's fine in your imagination. If that's what you're thinking about And of course we all deserve to have a Safe space in our heads where we can Have this creativity and imagination, of course, that's very healthy Not only to ourselves, but to the people around us Not only to ourselves, but to the people around us as well But then these people need to know when to draw the line when it gets out of hands when these thoughts Need to actions in reality Where suddenly now they've they've become a stalker And you've made it clear that you don't want anything to do with them and they're still coming after you to where it's Pretty much become rape.  I understand that I think that yes, there was a time Maybe many thousands or millions of years ago where that was the reality Where maybe a caveman would just Be a woman over the heads Just chuck her on his back and take her back to his cave and just do what he needed to do So I would assume that that's where that fantasy came from And maybe that's how it is for men as well But as I said, if it's a fantasy, it's in your imagination No one can really judge you for that. That's Of course that would be Wrong of me to judge you for the thoughts you have in your head Doesn't matter what you're thinking about doesn't matter if you're having murder fantasies after abuse Doesn't matter how extreme it is. It's Perfectly okay. As long as it's a fantasy. It's in your imagination As long as it's not playing out into reality Where you are seeking to harm someone or gain at their expense That is when it becomes a problem And I'm sure many of you can resonate with this as I have in the past A lot of things that we think about we want to do it But deep down we know we shouldn't do it or we're not going to do it Because we know that it's wrong But of course as we know Gang stalkers narcissists They do like discipline and self-control And it is completely insane how the thought the fantasy that they have in their mind It becomes something real in reality And how they're actually going out and they're doing it they're playing it out in real life And they do it so much And they deny that it's a problem because their narcissism the fantasy is more important than anything They block everything out they end up blocking out reality And they create this false character this fake world where nothing that they do is wrong They don't have to be accountable for anything because it isn't even real They're not real. You're not real It's scary It's scary.  I feel disgusting Just to even be around it And again. Yes, that is How you should think how you should feel When you see these things manifested into reality If it's just something in someone's head there's these thoughts that have been I mean if someone came to me, of course, I've experienced this with my clients. I've been doing this now for five years So someone came to me and they told me about Their fantasy You know these things In their imagination and I don't care what it is. It could be anything at all. It could be a rape fantasy They may fantasize about murdering their ex-wife the the ex-husband Maybe it could be something to do with Robbery stealing something it could be anything Regardless of what it is The first thing I would do and recognize Is that the first thing that would be completely obvious to me is that okay This person clearly Clearly has a lot of discipline and self-control You know that that's the first thing that comes to my head when I think about that So yes, this is something that we we can talk about and that we should talk about You know as long as it hasn't got to the point where they've created a false character an alter ego And now They use in this world, you know real life and they've turned it into their own alternate reality Then it's become a problem Now you can't communicate with someone like that now And they can't communicate with you now because it's like it's blowing up out of proportion so much where it's like If you had to go and create a false character and a fake world to protect and defend yourself against something like that then clearly the problem is with you and Sometimes you have to look at yourself as well You know that this goes both ways If you do genuinely desire to be a healthy sane normal functional person You will at some point look at yourself and think okay. Have I Created a false character. Have I created the world inside my mind? And I'm trying to pull other people into it And is that harmful Is that not healthy? Of course you have to look through all of these things And analyze it within yourself if you are a generally healthy normal functional real person You will accept that it does go both ways. You won't just put the onus on just the other person You will look at yourself as well It's not all just about pointing the finger and blaming everyone else It's about taking accountability for where you find yourself in life. But as I said Gangstalkers and this is what it is as well And it's absolutely insane but a lot of the things Why they go out and they stalk people It's because it's not really because of anything you've actually done.  And yet they're looking at it like it's more than what it is When it's no Part of being a normal healthy person is recognizing That yes people do have fantasies in their minds Things that may be May seem quite insane What's in your mind can seem insane illogical Irrational emotional all of these things And yes, that is still perfectly normal It doesn't matter if you're having fantasies of Murder rape whatever it is all of these things. It's perfectly okay And in fact, it's it's only not okay if you think it's not okay Yes, you need to accept that these thoughts are fine Because when you accept them and you let go of the resistance to them Watch how that feeling subsides Watch how that feeling subsides It's only when It's like these people they know yes murder rape all of these things. They're bad. They're wrong But then they're resisting it They're trying to fight against it and they're like, no, no, no, it's not wrong.  Don't fight against it. It's okay. You're in a safe space. You can talk about this You can let it go let it all come out And when you do that You will feel so much better about yourself And you will The the desire will subside You will no longer want to go out and do that You will no longer want to go out and harm anyone So it's really that simple and you know, this is completely obvious when you look at it If something isn't working you just do the opposite of what you're doing It's as simple as that. I mean this is I'm sure a lot of you understand that already it is common sense If you have these thoughts these fantasies I mean, you've already done it yourself. You're watching my video right now You know instead of going out and trying to Change them or do something to them Instead, what have you done you've gone within And you've decided to watch my videos instead of doing that This is where we differ with narcissists because they don't do that instead of going within As I know no if I can just change this change that move this here move this there. It's like a game of chess If I could just move everything around outside of myself Then I can feel better inside temporarily But it doesn't last and that's why the stalkers Eternally 24 7 they'll always be that way Fascinating I know But this is a reality Unfortunately, this isn't just some idea in their heads I could only wish that it was This is something that they actually go out and do in real life but you can Find pleasure In these thoughts and these fantasies in your imagination Yes, you can find pleasure in doing that. There's nothing wrong with that at all But also practice control self-discipline I know when to let these fantasies go and move on with your life It can be a part of the healing process. There's nothing wrong with that at all Don't let them guilt you don't let them shame you If you are Reading these books 50 shades of gray whatever it is Yes, I would have had a different opinion before but in actuality now I can honestly say But it's fine It's okay as long as you don't let it get out of hand As long as you're not putting yourself in situations where You're wanted to go out and rape or harm someone or you want someone to do that to you Of course with everything we have to know when to draw the line when it becomes toxic and healthy These types of things so yes You know, of course, I understand this is a very deep topic. It's Maybe something a lot of us don't really want to talk about But as you know, I am a truth teller. I will just go out and Say things as they actually are that is Healthy that is the normal way to do things We haven't got to cover it up and not speak about these things because We don't have to be full of shame Like narcissists We don't have to be like that. We can let the shame go. We can practice acceptance see things as they actually are It's fine. It's normal Yes, we've just talked about Rape be the sm time people up chaining them murder So what? What's wrong with that and now we're going to let these things go these fantasies and we're going to go out and move on with our lives Because that is the normal thing to do that is the healthy thing to do The wrong thing to do is to bottle it up and feel all of this pressure like You got to hold on to it because it's something you need to process your emotions It's it's a natural part of the healing process But at the same time they put the finger at you You're bad. You're wrong. You're crazy now. I got a stalk and I harass you Now we don't do that That is not the right way to do it and we will continue along this path Towards our healing journey Because we know that that is the right thing to do The right thing to do is not to bottle up these emotions No, the right thing to do is to process them and to become healthy strong people Who love ourselves and love other people as well That is the correct thing to do and we will continue to do that on this channel We will continue to talk about these things so that other people can heal because I think we can all agree. We just don't want to stay stuck We don't want to be stuck in a reality that is not serving us We're not moving forward. We're not becoming better So, yeah That's all there is to it Just looking through The live chat here Let's see what people are saying Chris you're slipping I didn't think I was slipping But don't worry. I'm still here. I haven't fallen off yet Classy cats then says eyes are one of my weaknesses And unfortunately most knocks have deep eyes Yeah, there is definitely something about the eyes in narcissists I don't know why but for some reason I think Most of the narcissists that I've seen especially when they fly into that narcissistic rage The eyes become very wide Black dark. It's like there's no life in their eyes Like they're just operating from that reptilian part of their brains They're just trying to fulfill some sort of need And they're very desperate to do anything they can to obtain that But as you as we know even if you do Trying to fulfill their needs. It's never enough. They're never satisfied anyway Dave Google Says Chris is awesome. No BS here Thank you. I appreciate that Because this is what it's about really I mean You know we live in these Narcissistic even psychopathic Societies And the reason why is because of the shame People are pushing in a way the shame. They don't want to talk about certain things And it's not good The more we continue to do this the more that the shame will grow And people will become even more psychopathic As they continue to try to dodge the shame And people like us will continue to blame ourselves For things that we were not even the cause of The correct thing to do is just to come out and talk about these things And if there's something wrong, if there's a problem Then we figure out how we're going to fix it. It's as simple as that. You don't have to go around Attacking people Doing all of these harmful things There's just no need for that at all Dave Google. Yes. Narcissists don't live in reality And again, that's because of the shame If you want to live in reality, you must Let go of the shame. The problem is It's already gone so far and they know it They've done so many things wrong So many skeletons in the closet They just can't let it all go They can't accept it themselves. You think you can't accept them? They can't accept themselves But I will admit, you know, it's not such an easy process Of course as we all Do or or as we should all do I have looked back from my past and of course there were things Where I looked back and I think why did I say that? Why did I do that? And of course we have to look back and realize we were a lot younger then We weren't so wise. We weren't so knowledgeable. We didn't have much experience A lot of us we were surrounded by narcissists We were sheltered. We were raised in this bubble So of course that's The obvious reason why There is no other reason for it other than that It's really that simple Narcissists For them it's a different story. It's not because they were innocent and naive. No It's nothing to do with that for them at all Everything they do is calculated. It's premeditated. It's thought out beforehand How do you justify that? How do you explain that? Of course they can't If they come out then What do we do? We just have to put them all in jail You know, there's there's no escape for them They the only thing they can do is continue to relish in their shame As it continues to grow within them and they try to deflect it onto you or someone else And they continue to become even more narcissistic, malignant and psychopathic And it just gets even worse where it's just Impossible it becomes even more and more impossible The more that they continue on that path It's too late For a lot of them. It really is Once they've engaged in this type of Calculated and premeditated behavior There's just no going back for them And a lot of times there's just no incentive for them to do the right thing Looks like there's a lot of Trolling and the live chat there People are asking are you a narcissist?  Let's see your eyes.  I have a lot of discipline self-control as you can see A lot of you will snap You will snap and you will be like What? I'm the narcissist It will just It will feel like an attack on your reality because You know yourself. You know what you went through.  Yes, and it will make you very emotional Because following the abuse you want to have that discipline and self-control So to set an example if they Try to call you the toxic person the narcissist Just don't even respond. You don't even need to answer that. But what you can do is look within yourself Which is what I do all the time, of course, I self-reflect Every day hours and hours every day I'm self-reflecting right now as I'm making this video and The other best thing to do is And this is actually a great thing you can do with them If they do call you the narcissist or toxic person just say Okay What if I am what can I do to change it? What can I do to make things better? See what they say It'll probably be something superficial where you have to give them money You have to give them more of your time over your attention Even if you spend every day with them and you've already given them your entire life Trust me, it will never be enough with a narcissist And that is why they call you the narcissist because they just want more of you They just want you to invest more of yourself When as I said In my video yesterday, you've just got to write down In a notebook write down all of the things you've done for them all of the things they've done for you And yet you're there the ones calling you the narcissist Does that add up? Does that make sense? I don't think so Of course, even if you have all of the evidence in the world and you give it to them They're still going to gas like you because the only other option is for them to say that yes, they are the ones who are narcissists So there's not going to be anything grounded in reality. You can have all of the evidence in the world. It's not going to make any difference It's not going to make any difference at all Which is why yes, the reality will continue for A very long time For forever They're always going to be that way because they have to live in denial. They cannot deal with the shame So what thank you for the donation. I greatly appreciate it But yeah, that that is a Great topic a good question as well for a lot of you I have done some videos on that You know, I know a lot of you may be thinking about that right now You may be thinking if you are the narcissist Because I know myself If you are an empath or a codependent you are someone who Reflects and feels the shame and like a narcissist who deflects it Ironically, you may feel like it's you Because you're feeling the shame But it's a catch 20 22 because If you're looking at yourself and you're asking yourself Am I the narcissist And you're feeling the shame Clearly, it's not you Because narcissists don't feel their shame. They deflect it instead.  It's always the person who's trying to shame you That's Is the narcissist It's not the person who feels the shame So those of you who are watching this right now, don't worry about it If you feel bad if you feel like Oh, no, what if I am the narcissist? If you feel that if you feel the shame, don't worry. It's not you. It's 100 100 percent. It is not you It's the person who deflects the shame If that is your immediate instinct to deflect it Rather than to go within feel the shame self-flow heal and process it Of course, it's not you So, well, thanks again For the donation Just going to show this beautiful view once more You can see the city in the back there I don't know if you know, but that is The second tallest building in the world And I don't know if you know, but this is the world's favorite cat Nala the one and only The world's greatest She's just rolling around having a good time But yeah, that's it for this video talking about stalking gang stalking A lot of information in this one. I hope it helps And as always, I will have more videos very soon Please give it a thumbs up down below Share it subscribe And you all have a great


from it's somewhere in like the 10,000 lines of code and I need to be able to actually have I need software to write my software because otherwise I can't keep track of all the things that are coming and going. And then that's contrasted with this decoupled approach which in the general software industry is now often termed microservices but in the CMS space you know it's the idea of decoupling your CMS so that you don't have everything happening in one application. And we can talk about why this provides specific benefits and why people are interested in it also some of the caveats and things you should be aware of if you find this of interest in our considering it. But it's important to note that this isn't something that's just a Drupalism. The moniker quote unquote headless is sort of a Drupal community thing because it sounds cool and like I bear some responsibility for that like I made a neat mashup graphic of like a headless horseman holding a Drupal instead of a pumpkin but that's sort of like a fun thing that we came up with in our own world. More broadly in the world of websites and website makers the notion of decoupling your CMS from some of its other components particularly decoupling the content management from content display has actually been around since the very beginning and this is an architecture that actually has a lot of legacy in the web and a lot of things going forward. So monoliths try to think of their big blocks of stuff and they have everything in them. You can kind of think of the monolith at the beginning of 2001. It's just like it's all there and the idea is it's a totality and it contains everything. In the Drupal world you might say well we do have these different functionalities and in fact we have a separation of concerns. It's not actually really monolithic because there's the theme layer which is you know there's a different directory where that code lives and themes are invoked in a different way than modules and it's different than core for sure and that's true but the thing is that that's more of an internal convention rather than a strong separation of concerns. The boundary between what happens at the theme layer and what happens within Drupal core is very permeable. That gets a bit better with Drupal 8 and twig where there's actually maybe a stronger separation of concerns between literally the templates themselves and the theme but you still have all of the logic that's in the theme that bounds how layouts are constructed and when they're utilized and sort of like what content is present for each template. That software that code that's programmed to do that essentially has an unmitigated access to the rest of the system and vice versa and so what happens when you have that permeable boundary is even with the best of intentions and following best practices there's usually some and sometimes there's a lot of spillover between the two areas and so it's sort of like you're playing Twister with your code and Twister is like an exciting and yet awkward game of chance and for the projects that you're building this is why for instance you know you may think hey we have a we just need a new theme I don't want to do really anything big to my website I just want to do a little bit of a redesign can we build a new theme and suddenly you discover that actually that's going to require you to refactor a great many things and the reason is that things are all twisted up. This is also a frustration to front end developers people who don't have a lot of Drupal specific expertise but have a lot of experience building pages for the web because what happens is our Drupalisms the things that really only exist in Drupal or are only familiar to people who have years of experience with Drupal end up leaking out to the front end where general web developers who maybe have years of experience building amazing web pages and doing awesome stuff on the front end are kind of like scratching their heads and be like what is this stuff and why is it here it feels really like foreign to me and it gets in my way. So the monolithic architecture has these drawbacks in that it creates confusion for the front end developers they have a harder time latching on and working with Drupal because there are so many Drupalisms that leak out and then internally even the Drupal savvy developers because of all the twisting up of things can sometimes end up in a position where they're not able to move as quickly as they want or they're being frustrated by unintended side effects or they just find that it's actually very difficult to meet the needs of the business and if you remember the beginning of 2001 and when that monolith came down the result was that the pre-human primates that were down there they got pretty ragey and they ended up smashing things up. So in the worst case scenario the kind of a kluji monolith actually leads to a lot of unproductive work for developers a lot of unnecessary factoring a lot of having to roll things back because an unintended consequence occurred and these are the reasons why from the developer side people are definitely excited about a different way of building websites. The different way of building websites involves a strong separation of concerns and in general although this actually burges out within that whole idea of microservices and I'll talk a little bit about that at the end in general what people are talking about here is they're saying hey I want Drupal to be the repository of my content I want it to like handle the editing of content and some administrative stuff and then I want something else hand wave hand wave we'll get into that later something else to handle the display of that content to my users and the difference is that we're going to communicate over an HTTP API between the Drupal backend and that something else on the front end that creates a strong separation of concerns because the only thing that can be passed over that API is data these days most folks use a REST API and they use JSON data that's the most kind of widely that's the lingua franca of the of the distributed web and what that means is that the on the front end that client can be ignorant of almost all things Drupal it can just consumes these you know objects in JSON and then does whatever it thinks are necessary and that means that if you can agree upon what will be passed back and forth over this API that's an important point to note one of the key things from a practical standpoint building with a decoupled architecture is having a lot of this stuff mapped out ahead of time and even kind of prototypes so that there's a spec of what there's a contract even that's the way the developers often talk about it there's a contract between the front end in the back end of I will ask for this and you will send me that and that creates like a good solid foundation on which you can execute and one of the nice things about this is that people can actually execute in parallel once you have that foundation and it kind of makes people happy and everybody wins the reason why everybody wins is that the folks are able to use the tools that they prefer so a Drupal back end developer doesn't need to worry about theming and the front end developer who may or may not know that much about Drupal at all is able to use whatever tool chain they'd like because all they're doing is you know getting some some JSON files over this API and then rendering them as you know per the specs so that they can have things work for the client and there's an enormous amount of innovation happening online in that front end space with the you know kind of HTML5 becoming the new standard flash is finally dying out thank goodness and and we're just seeing like the rate of progress in that front end development space is really really rapid and for us as Drupalists I think it's really important that we we are a part of that I think we can actually play a really important role there I was recently at a conference that had a whole angular conference of anglers a JavaScript front end so it's a it's a JavaScript framework for building rich front-end applications and they're doing like really cool stuff like you know interactive applications that if you're not on the internet will save your data locally and then sync up with you know the mothership whenever the internet access comes back and figure it out like really advanced stuff like that that's just great but they are sort of not they don't have a lot of sophistication when it comes to what their angular front-end applications are talking to and I think there's a really amazing opportunity for us in the Drupal space to show how these pieces can fit together here we have a robust content management system it has all those wonderful administrative capabilities it's got great editorial capabilities it has access controls and users and permissions these are all things that you really are hard and on some of you don't want to implement in the front-end because they're easily then that you know you're putting that code in the hand of a user a malicious user could have used that code coupling these things together and showing or certain I shouldn't say coupling since we're talking to be coupled connecting these things together in a structured way creates a lot of opportunity and it's a chance for Drupal to sort of connect itself to one of the most vibrant and active parts of web development today like I mentioned before another reason this is really exciting people is that it allows you to parallel track your work this is something that's been the vein of almost every Drupal project that I've heard of to some degree or another that you have this chicken-and-the-egg problem of well we need our content model to be set up before we can do our design and then once we started implementing our design we discovered that the content model was in some ways not you know we missed something and then we had to go back and then we changed that down some parts of the design were not implemented correctly and there's this kind of ping-ponging that can happen on a more complex project especially between the developers who are creating the core back-end for the system how the content is stored what the business logic is and the femurs who are working on the front-end and oftentimes the dynamic between those two different teams can become kind of a little bit you know statically which is not great with it and that can certainly happen in any project this is no by the vitamins who I mean to recommend that like decoupling is a silver bullet that prevents you from ever having developers at odds with another but if you are able to create a contract between and then you start with that as a spec really you start with the API spec and there's really tools out there for and processes out there for for creating and managing API specs you start with that then the front-end developers can just go because they have a spec to work against and they can kind of you know may they can have something that mocks that spec that just provides the basic responses and they can just be off and running on as soon as that is done while the the back-end developers are implementing the real-world version of that spec and then you know once you start to actually connect the two there will be a little bit of a back-and-forth but that's done by figuring out changes to the spec amendments to the contract if you will and that creates a structured mechanism for figuring out how these pieces end up connecting and because what they're connecting over is a rest API that there is a it is bounded right that the impacts of changes are knowable and can be understood and planned for an advance you're not gonna suddenly discover that there was another piece of code somewhere else that included some hook that was now being invoked and you know your user profile pages blew up unexpectedly that those sorts of unintended side effects that are the result of the game of twister are no longer as they're far far less likely to occur and you have a good structured way for doing this and you know people can work in parallel and the last real reason that I think people are extremely interested in this is that it creates some notion of future proofing. I think there's really two aspects to future proofing when it comes to decoupled. The first aspect is if you have a decoupled back-end and a contract for what the front-end should you know is going to expect to receive and you know the and then the front-end its own business how that ends up looking it becomes a relatively straightforward proposition to say I would like a different front-end because you can you can sort of pop one off and put another one on you can run to in parallel relatively easily you can change the front-end without necessarily having to change anything at all on the back-end that you might find that your new front-end you want to do some design things that involves capabilities that didn't exist before and then you have to like look at how you need to amend your contract but in the simplest case if you just want to say go for you know go from your existing design to a completely mobile first design or if you want to have the option of like totally different designs for desktop versus tablet or if you want to have a design for your site an experience of your site's content that's totally different for a certain type of user or so totally different for a certain type of use case you can actually run that as a separate front end using the same contract in the same API talking to the same back-end and that's a very powerful capability so the idea that you can future proof yourself from like you know having the ability to iterate on your user experience without having to overhaul your whole CMS that's a that's a powerful and attractive idea the other future proofing aspect to this is the the macro trend for the web is this notion of services that interconnect with one another the notion of the internet of things the proliferation of things that consume the web is is you know there's we're not in some kind of weird future like you would see in an IBM ad but they're not wrong that that's the way that things are headed right the notion that a person looking at a web browser whether that's on their desktop or on a mobile device is how the web is consumed that's you know not really true anymore and it's only going to get less true over time so you have the the the very obvious and actually quite present case of mobile native applications that want to consume things from the web from CMS is decoupled as a way to serve that use case you also have the notion that maybe there's other sites you know maybe your content is being aggregated by other systems and and you want to be able to give it to them and rather than having them scrape your website you know it's it's kind of ironic that the lengths that Google goes to to determine semantic data out of just web pages you know they have these little tags you can throw around stuff which is awesome and that's what you get like event listings or other cool things when people search for your stuff but there are many many many many other websites that aren't just scraping the the you know scraping the HTML off your web page they'd like to interact with you on API level and that might really be of interest to you or vice versa maybe you want to consume data from some other API and you don't want to have it all kind of being forced to go through Drupal's database with a decoupled front end you could say that front end gets some of its data from Drupal and some of its data from another source maybe there's multiple sources that are involved and that's an exciting use case that's becoming more and more realistic for more and more people so the idea of decoupling now as a way of being better positioned to take advantage of future internet use cases is another aspect of future proofing so I want to talk a little bit now about caveats because that was a lot of exciting stuff about decoupling but there is as with anything where there's excitement there's also maybe a little bit of over excitement or I wouldn't say hype but generally you know people people developers in particular get really enthusiastic about this stuff because it's really cool and it's really fun but there are definitely drawbacks and risks to doing it this way there is an interesting blog post just was just titled the cake is a lie that talked about all the ways in which people might misunderstand what is going on with with the coupled and decoupled Drupal in particular so one of the first things to point out is that all of this is serious work to build there is no even with like the coolest proof of concept examples that are out there and there are some really cool ones there is no turnkey way to build a decoupled website that serves any particular use case there are just you know as far as we've gotten our basic patterns for connecting some of the new frameworks and new front-hands with a Drupal Drupal's data exposed over arrest API actually building your website using these techniques will require significant amounts of custom code significant amounts of soft you know software development and a lot of planning and iteration so you should not if there's people out there who seem to think that yeah just has this rest API and core and there's this thing called angular and you just turn them both on and suddenly you have an interactive single-page application website for Drupal that is very very far from the truth this is this is no longer like you know sort of Sputnik moonshot stuff that only the a few developers are working on but it's far from being a like thing that you just turn on and because what we're talking about really is comes down a lot of times to the user experience and the implementation of the front-end I don't think that we'll actually ever get to a place where you just like turn on decoupled mode or something like that because ultimately just like most websites built with Drupal have a custom theme there will be at most websites build with Drupal in fact almost all of them I think that are decoupled will have some customization to the front-end some customization to that contract between the front-end and the back-end and that's that's a lot of work it's not necessarily gonna save you money up front in fact it will probably make your project more complicated if you know from a cost standpoint it only makes sense as a long-term investment and from that standpoint if you want to do this you have to really get buy-in from everybody on your project all the stakeholders have to really think about this and want to do it before it makes sense to do unless you're simply just doing a prototype right there's there's some cool things you might be able to do by prototyping where it's like you know if you have your running website you're not actually changing that you're just setting up a little rest API and trying something out on the side that's kind of fun but if you are looking to do this for your you know for your primary website it is a big project it requires a lot of work the other thing is as we all know Drupal does all these wonderful things for us this is a great the periodic table of modules from amazing labs it's a neat wonderful case of infographic and and research so look there's all these modules there's a hundred of modules that are in use by hundreds of thousands of sites and the thing is that a lot of Drupal modules have to do with how stuff is displayed to the user and once you're no longer using Drupal to display stuff to the user most of these modules or a lot of them anyway kind of come off the table as things that you can utilize and what that means is anything that they were doing for you you're now doing some other way and that some other way probably involves you building it yourself in in your own manner or you know there's there's some stuff you could take advantage of on the front end there are some good plug-and-play JavaScript tools to be able to use but in total you're you're giving up a lot of the stuff you get for free with Drupal when you go into a decoupled architecture and you should really evaluate what you'll be giving up whether you can afford to just let it go or how much work and cost it will be to implement that in a different manner so everything from content translation to previewing to you know there are there are lots and lots of cases where things you know that you're just used to being able to do in Drupal they're no longer present in a decoupled architecture because it's it's customized okay so now I want to get into some specifics which is to talk about five different ways in which people go about decoupling sort of five different decoupled architectures I will and I'll talk through their various use cases and applications and then we'll take some questions from the crowd so the first and probably most popular method for doing decoupled implementation with Drupal is to have some sort of static site generator or static renderer and in this case it's sort of you have Drupal as your CMS and administrators are using that your content editors are using that as per normal and then something else whether that's something that's run once when you're ready to publish or something that can pull from the Drupal back end in real time generates static HTML pages out of the data in Drupal and the benefits here really are that you can just separate the concerns there's some great case studies out there I saw at the Dev Zyner conference in Portland phase two has a wonderful case study about using a front-end library called pattern lab which helps you build with atomic design this principle of building up design libraries and design languages and that's a it's a there's a big huge front-end tool chain for using pattern lab where you install all these node modules everything else on your laptop and you're just pattern labbing your way to things and what you end up with is this really really clean elegant minimal beautiful implementation of your design that is much much more robust and flexible than most Drupal themes from especially from our developer standpoint and then you sort of take your clean elegant minimal implementation design and you can generate just that HTML with your generator there's other tools out there that do this for kitchens has a open source project called Saucier that keep them with their chef theme that's a node.js framework for doing some of the static site generation and so what this does is it allows front-end developers to be unleashed it allows you to have that parallel track statically generated front sites are by definition high performance I mean they're well they they are much there because there's no database queries to be made they're going to be fast they're read only right it's a static site but it also means it's totally secure right there's no way there's no real way if all you have access to is something that's serving HTML documents for you to hack that and this is actually the oldest architecture in the book when it comes to the web there are people that were doing this in like 1995 because they got tired of writing web pages by hand which was how everyone was doing it and they said I'll have a script that takes my you know content from over here in a database and makes the web pages for me haha I won and so static site generation has been around for a long long time and and it's one of the most popular and and and straightforward ways that people are decoupling another way is to have a hybrid approach to decoupling and what this really means is that you are building on top of your existing website a rest API and that's this is a way to you can also prototype so you have your website it's working great maybe there's things you'd like to change about it but for the most part it's doing its job and what you do is you essentially build as an extension to that website the rest API and then you can start to do things with it so you could have a portion of your website be a rich JavaScript application that talks to this API it's not just like doing the normal Drupal call and response kind of page building for full pages it could be talking to this API to generate a really dynamic dashboard for instance or to have a really rich content editing experience or to have you know some other kind of highly interactive capability or it could be that you have this API and it's you know it's serving to power a section of the website that is being built with one of these static site generators or something else like that and this allows you to to sort of get a little bit of the best of both worlds to start because you don't have to think about redoing your whole website you just think about where a decoupled functionality or decoupled capability would be of use to you and and focus on that the the risk here is that you know you're sort of like building a half-breed monolith slash API thing and and if you go very far down this road you may find that you need to refactor more and more but it's an interesting way to get started and certainly there are websites that are built with this in mind from the start so for instance websites where there's a really beautiful kind of interactive normal user experience but like all the login stuff and user profile stuff those are just served directly by Drupal so you're you're saying I want to use a decoupled architecture for a certain set of components but then I want to actually rely on Drupal for another set of components maybe particularly where I'm more concerned with security or something else that's a certainly a valid approach to this architecture another architecture that can be used in conjunction with the hybrid is this notion of the quote-unquote single-page app and this is where a lot of the not just design development on the front end but the functional development on the front end gets very exciting so this is where you have these frameworks that are coming up like angular backbone react and ember and more for building interactive applications on in the front end so you basically are delivering software that's written in JavaScript to the browser it runs in the browser and it does really great stuff and you can do things with this this type of architecture you know requires advanced JavaScript development skills but you can do things this way that just you can't do any other way you can't create a real-time application experience if every time an interaction occurs you have to do a round trip back to the web server this is a way to build real-time application experiences in the browser and typically good real-time application experiences there's a back end right there's a place where stuff is get saved and loaded from Drupal actually makes a wonderful back end for these sorts of things and and this was actually for at Pantheon one of the the first few iterations of our dashboard actually worked this way we had a Drupal website that was fronting for a core API but that Drupal website was mostly just pushing data to a JavaScript application that was driving all the user interface and interactions that's how you create good real-time experiences as I mentioned before there's the whole native mobile app or potentially future internet of things and this is the idea of having your website talk to some embedded application right so an application that's not running in a web browser it's a Android app it's an iOS app it's a smart device in a home it could be sending data to that application it could be receiving data from that application and and that's a great way to interact with all those things because you know they're not gonna like you know you're not gonna mock a user and fake web page submissions and stuff like that to do those interactions you're gonna need an API especially if you want to have multiple different things that are going on one of the things I'll point out to is that like you can you can there there's these architectures that I'm showing you are just examples of the major themes that emerge so for instance there are cases four kitchens did a case study on that I saw where they built a static site for twit.tv it's this week in tech it's very popular podcast so they built a they built a decoupled they used their Saucier library and they built a static site for the for desktop and mobile web and tablet and so forth but they also with the client are working on documenting and exposing the API so that the community around the site can try to build their own applications on top of it which is really interesting it's the idea of well now that we have this API that we are using to drive our website what if we could safely expose this API or some portion of it to our users and see what they want to do with this innovation and that's kind of gets to this like more connected and integrated world where it's not just about delivering web pages it's about building you know kind of integrated systems and certainly the native mobile app universe is one of those particularly because a lot of times when you see people building a website that drives a native mobile app there's also a website for that app and that website is one that people can just come and log into and you might utilize Drupal's capabilities directly to handle like user account management and for the people who are administering the server it's service to go in and say oh like let me make some new content in Drupal and that gets pushed down to all the mobile apps as the latest update those sorts of interactions and tools work quite well where you have actually multiple ways of interacting with the core CMS system whether that's directly to the website or through a native mobile app and finally the last implementation that I'll talk to is the CMS on CMS or to stick with our headless horseman language what I like to call zombie Drupal and so this is where you've decoupled Drupal and the new thing on top of Drupal is more Drupal and that sounds this sounds a little crazy and maybe like you're over and maybe we're going a little bit too into Drupal land with this but it's actually a highly valid architecture and the reason is that you can create a separation of concerns between your your your layers but you don't necessarily need to implement separate technologies so it may be the case that you actually have a lot of Drupal developers and not a lot of front-end developers who are not familiar with Drupal and in fact you can parallel track multiple teams of Drupal developers by again creating the same API contract and it basically maybe even creating usable reusable code as a standard way that your instances will send and receive data from another but because you're able to build with a separation of concerns the tech team can can implement across both paths simultaneously and one of the nice things about having a CMS as the front as the front end is that the CMS has capabilities where the CMS is by nature configurable so you have instances where we have actually a very very high traffic site on Pantheon it's like a top 200 site on the internet and it's built with this type of configuration so there's millions of pages a day and they have a back-end CMS that has like their huge repository of content it's just like a ginormous repository of content it's like it's just like millions and millions and millions of articles and nodes and because they have so much content they'll be really careful of what they do with it they can't just create random views and hope it all works out for the best because once you're standing over like 10 plus million pieces of content you can create queries of death that will bring your site down so easily and that that's a common fear for people with large-scale websites so what they do is they build a highly efficient Drupal application that is just about exposing that content over a REST API and then they build another Drupal application that is a consumer of that API and it handles this way and it handles some caching and it allows them to like try out different things like they can adjust on the front end site oh let me just do a different layout or let me like reconfigure this on showing 10 pieces of content instead of 20 or oh let's go try setting up a new section we do it here and our ability are our we are essentially you know foolproof right we can never really hurt the back end because the back end only speaks over an API which the back end of knows it can serve in a scalable sustainable performant and secure manner and this is the beginning of moving towards a truly distributed microservices kind of architecture where you don't just have a front end and a back end you might have again multiple front ends so you could have your back-end CMS your front-end CMS your mobile app you could have another another back-end service that handles a specialized type of data maybe one that doesn't work so well with your primary type of data you could have another instance that just handles things like authenticated traffic you can integrate third-party services so a lot of people integrate third-party services for comments now as you start to build this type of decoupled services oriented architecture rather than a it's all in one website architecture more possibilities on the internet open up to you now certainly it's quite complex and it takes a lot of work to do but there's a lot of wind to be had in there and that's the reason why everyone is so super excited about it right now and I believe that at this point I'm ready oh that's not quite ready the one of the things to reiterate before we conclude is that this is nothing all of that new here as I mentioned with static site generation that's an architecture that's been around since the beginning of the web a lot of the service-oriented architecture stuff has been around it's just been something that only larger very large companies would do so service oriented architecture is not really new it's just new that people more of the internet public is thinking in these ways and is it being empowered to build in these ways and certainly you know a lot of what we're looking at with the native native mobile apps that's relatively new but the idea of you know building an interface to a site that was consumed by something very different you know I'm glad that flash is really going by the wayside but there are plenty of people from the heyday of flash you know like the mid-auts who built websites where there was a flash front-end and some kind of CMS back-end possibly even early versions of Drupal Drupal 4.5 maybe and so these are all architectures that have been with us for a long time what's changing now is that they're becoming more and more standardized we're getting more and more best practices and the tools to build them are really rapidly evolving and becoming more and more accessible so while this is exciting stuff it's not really new it's more that it's moving from the like vanguard state to the broad early adopter state and that's exciting because that's really been always up to me a core of what the Drupal community is we are early adopters of new technologies on the web that's one of the things that makes the project awesome that's one of the things that keeps us relevant that's one of the things that keeps it fun for us to do so really excited to help you know spread the word about this stuff and hopefully get more people interested in engaging and helping us further develop best practices further develop tools further create more case studies and awareness around the joys of decoupled CMS and at that point now I'm ready to take some questions well Josh that was just fantastic