The truth was once unknowable
One could only know the false.
Now it stands cloaked, clothed, adorned
In a garb of emotion, hue, and trend
A costumed character on stage.
It shames, it names, it cancels.
Branded now, with insiders
Claiming its privilege.
It carries a price tag few can afford.
Truth used to be silent; now it speaks.
It argues. It calls out the false.
It demands an audience.
And in all of this, it becomes the lie.
How Much?
I stood on the deck of the ship
And looked out into the vastness of blue…
Sea and sky merged at a distance
And land was nowhere in sight.
The moment was a teacher.
Qualities and Quantities–
That had mattered in the presence
Of people, and things, and seductions that beckon–
Had vanished into this vast space.
Here I stood by myself
In a vastness that was devoid
Of distraction, of other, of past and future
It was the now, but it seemed disinterested in being time.
In that solitude, I stood empty
Of all the things that we believe, matter.
This brief acquaintance
With myself as a being
Whose identity and plans made no difference to existence
Made me see that titles and accomplishment, having and proving
Matter only in small, confined spaces.
Otherwise, existence is enough
You are enough.
I Can’t Wait, I Can’t Watch, I Won’t Listen
Human intelligence has evolved
Through the mechanism of informed choice.
Our species as it exists today
Has come to believe that humanity
Is a self-sustaining system.
And that together,
It will solve the problems it has created
By virtue of making better choices.
But intelligence is beyond our choices
Intelligence is a property of life itself.
It demands awareness, not knowledge
It functions outside of Ivy League-educated
Plans and strategies. It demands being
Not becoming. Its language is ever-new
In meaning. You learn it by listening.
Life is an emergent reality.
Today, I stayed still and watched…
Light unhurriedly slipped over the horizon.
And an inky blue sky emerged.
You couldn’t command the light to stay.
Or compel it through a legal contract.
Or, shame it for its pace of work.
Or reprimand it because it didn’t produce
The results and fantasies you had imagined.
Life is a pulse, it beats in rhythms
It cooperates through a natural wisdom
It speaks the language of incoherence.
It doesn’t organize itself through politics and wars
Or protests, and promises, and documents.
To understand life, one must step out of the cave
One has mistaken for the entirety of the world.
One must occasionally see light slip over the horizon.
The Design of Deep Change
What if I don’t speak?
Say nothing of the absurdities
I see around me…
The filth, the corruption,
The lies masquerading as truth;
The blind waxing eloquent about a ‘vision’;
Junk dressed up as rhetoric
Trying to convince us all of its creativity;
The capitalists who try to sell you the myths
That they’ve invested in.
What is there to lose?
A key to my only door?
The voice that can speak to injustice?
My dreams of a better tomorrow?
The ground on which I stand?
The roof above my head?
The answer to a future question?
The courage to exist?
The certainty of continuity?
My faith in the good?
Creativity is the primeval urge for action.
Yet what we call action–
That which is propelled by desire and hope
Or fear, anger, and intolerance
Is but a reaction that brings about effects…
Mere changes on the surface
That we mistake for a revolution.
The actions that matter are those that are deferred.
To witness, to wait, to watch, and to listen
Are the design of deep, transformative change.
Keep a Song in Your Heart
When the day seems hardened
by mechanical work, deadlines
and tough choices…
When you’re forced
to give your all to the present
with no time to revisit old memories…
When pauses leave you
feeling guilty and you fail
to see in them a gift of reconnection…
When your day is made more efficient
with the shortest route suggestions on Uber
and AI thinking, reading, and summarizing for you…
Remember a song.
Remember its lyrics and revel in its melody
Forget deadlines and efficiency. Live.
When You Build a Home
When you build a home
Is that all you build?
Or, in building it
Do you also build perseverance
And discipline, and character?
Do you finally find your faith
That thing that religion
Tried to unsuccessfully teach you
Through indoctrination…
Books and institutions that deliver knowledge
Are designed to bring forth the past to the present.
So that you may build your future
On the foundations of wisdom.
However, building a home
Teaches you lessons in real time.
You learn to create rhythms instead of systems.
You learn that love is presence
And that presence is work.
When I talk of building a home
Know that I also mean
That whatever you build is a home.
In building it, you come to fully live.
In it, you encounter your fears
In it, you realize your strength
In it, you understand
That identity is what you may gather
But your self is what you will find.
Corruption
When limits are not respected
Knowledge becomes corrupted.
When falsities are not questioned
Beliefs become corrupted.
When intention is not reviewed
Action becomes corrupted.
When words become weapons
Understanding becomes corrupted.
When love becomes selective
Emotions become corrupted.
When the vulnerable are not protected
Power becomes corrupted.
Book of Short Stories
We’re each a book of short stories
Events, encounters, tragedies, and joys…
Disappointments and regrets
Passion and pain…
Gathered with us
As the dust of memories.
Why do we carefully collect this dust?
Why do we sustain its presence?
Perhaps we intuitively know
That the answers we seek
Cannot be found in what happened
They’re realized in witnessing what remains.
Wisdom
There was a storm outside my window this morning.
Furious, raging, threatening and violent!
It came with force and blew its fury
It slammed, it banged…my windows wobbled.
The trees are now swaying to their natural rhythm
The storm has passed as quickly as it arrived
The trees survived. The storm couldn’t destroy them.
They’ve seen many storms over many seasons.
Where Have We Failed?
Are we creating catastrophe after catastrophe
Because our myths are being challenged
And we must now destroy everything
To create new myths and reclaim our delusional glories?
In designing life around autonomy and conveniences
Have we doomed ourselves to an existence
Where we must now grapple with ghosts
And imaginary challenges to derive a sense of purpose?
When did our spaces become unsafe
For women, children, men…
The helpless, the voiceless, the old and the infirm?
What passions have become more important than compassion?
Have relationships become conveniences?
Forged with a swipe, ended on a whim
Self-serving and devoid of respect
Discontinued because of disinterest?
Have we lost the capacity to build
Something slowly, through time…
Now that we can produce anything
Without engaging with its formation?
When did we reduce
The rich diversity of life
To some meaningless tropes of success
And reserve our applause for a tiresome few?
Have we lost our capacity for knowledge
Through direct perception and deep insight
By relying on our information superhighways
That are misinforming and misleading us?
Are we no longer interrogating life
Because it’s become such an entertaining carnival?
Are we so satisfied with what we have found
That we are no longer seeking?
