Circumstances do have a hold on us.
They can restrain us.
One may not be able to
Walk away from a circumstance.
Freedom within a circumstance
Is of a different kind.
It exists in loosening your grip
Over that which is gripping you.
To have found this freedom
Is to have understood
What freedom really means.
Never Enough
Do you ever wonder…
In creating conveniences and
Products and services and
Industries and technologies to cater
To all our imaginable needs and wants,
Have we simultaneously created a culture of inadequacy
And an eternally doomed-to-fall-short-of-success work life
Along with a looming feeling of failing in your personal life
Always under pressure for never being ‘enough’?
Our consumption is not natural
Because our needs and wants
Are manufactured before they are catered to
Our consumption supports our collective human need
To create and build things that compete to surpass and exceed
Prior creations that we now deem ‘not good enough.’
We stand informed by our culture that our creativity is
rooted in dissatisfaction; in believing that we need to be better
That we somehow are ‘never enough’.
You Are More Than Enough
Do not slip into decadence
just because you’ve realized
that it is ridiculous to fall in love
with your struggles.
There’s no need
to see your struggles
as a moral necessity.
When the world
would like you to be
this or that…
To simply be is an act of defiance.
Refuse to abide
In another’s imagination.
That is your prison.
Break free.
Revolt…silently.
Say nothing. Stay suspended.
Your reactions are still
under the control
of those who hold your strings.
Do not make the choices
The world offers you.
To be given a choice
is to be denied freedom.
Become still.
Watch the world spin.
See it vomit its ugliness.
Separate yourself from it
so that you can heal.
Reclaim your pristine self.
To move freely within yourself
is to have healed…
Where you no longer are
seeking instruction from the world
on how to think, feel, walk…
On how to be.
Have Faith
We do not know
How our lives will play out
The plots in our life stories
Are not authored by us.
And yet, something must be said
For all that we’ve lived through
Sometimes with our innocence abused
Sometimes with passive aggression
Sometimes with a sense of shame or guilt
Sometimes with cowardice
Sometimes with heroism
Sometimes with anger and rage
And sometimes with silent courage and humility.
Our common experience though
Has been our vulnerability.
Our acquired knowledge may have shielded us
But we only became fortified
By living through the emotions
We were taught to avoid or overcome.
Failure to meet expectations
Is not only necessary in order to survive
It also becomes the friction you need
In order to grow into wisdom.
Each one of us must
Bear within us the burden of our cross…
Of our frail humanity
So that we may come to know eventually
That we know nothing
And it is not our knowledge that will redeem us
But our faith.
Renovation
Renovations, when begun
Do not look like renovations.
Things stand displaced, disordered
There’s chaos…
Smoke and dust…
And everything looks like the debris
From destruction and loss.
However, it is the vision
Of what is to come
That allows us to not only
Live through the mess
But to also enjoy it!
Staying in Touch
My best friend questioned me
About my preferred mode
For staying in touch…
“Is it Facebook? Is it Instagram?”
“No… not really,” I replied
“Those are great for sharing your views
Or snippets from your day
Or some creative work that you’re doing…
I still like meeting one-on-one,” I replied
Well aware that it had been years
Since we had met and sat down and spoken.
I was suddenly acutely aware of the difference.
When you meet in person with someone
It’s about showing an interest in them.
When you’re on social media
The spotlight is only on you.
It’s about self-promotion, not connection.
It’s quite a travesty
How the design of modern life
With its work-for-survival culture
And its flawed rationale
That connectivity will strengthen connection
And its love for speed
(which it has renamed as ‘efficiency’)
Has robbed us of slowness and leisure
And has instead handed to us varnish and gloss
-Cosmeticised appearances of joy, beauty and success.
I miss the simplicity of the everyday
(Before it was conceived as a function
In the production of an ‘even better’ tomorrow)
It used to be content and self-fulfilled.
I’ve lost the ability to do nothing
I can’t recall the last time I allowed myself to daydream
Without feeling guilty for doing so.
In trying to be connected to everyone everywhere
I’m never truly with anyone, anywhere.
However, few things keep me grounded
Such as the memory of a slower time
When we stopped by or got together
For a one-on-one conversation
About nothing in particular.
Do It Your Way
A set architecture with walled spaces
Stairways and elevations, and paved pathways
With names and arrows for direction-
May serve as a design for order and ease;
But the human is a dreamer…and a seeker
And conveniences cannot take him to where he needs to be.
His heart soars when he’s inspired.
In the intensity of the present moment
Even time releases him- so that the fire in him
Can set aflame the fuel that lays silent, muted and wasted
All can be re-ignited, all can have their power restored
And the atmosphere can be uplifted from dreariness.
The human creates not because he can trade his creations
But simply because he CAN create…
And to do so Is to discover the divine impulse
By which one can recreate a world
Of possibilities and infinite directions
So that all paths can take you to the self you’re seeking.
For What is This Life?
Knowing that your youth,
Your charisma and your confidence
Will eventually desert you…
And none will stay with you any longer
Than the first sign of your autumn…
And that friends and colleagues
Will also leave and go the way
Their dreams and desires take them.
Your neighbours will move…
Your neighbourhood will change…
And also that at some point
You will no longer be the right person
For the jobs that you have done
Day after day, week after week,
Year after year…
And your child now taller
In every sense…
Capable and young and free
Will someday soon, start seeing you
As her added responsibility…
Why then is this desire
To see yet another tomorrow?
To live yet another day?
What is its want?
Why does it remain obscure and voiceless?
If not for the fulfilment of desire
Why else should life beckon?
What must we learn from sorrow?
In living our lives when do we come to ask:
“For what is this life?”
For it cannot just be to foolishly chase
One more pleasure, or one more goal
When our experience shows us
That we live but in a world of appearances,
And make-believe and temporariness.
What is that ultimate hope
That we all cling to?
What is that permanence
That we feverishly seek?
Of what purpose is our inevitable disappointment?
I have no answers
But I have my restlessness
And an impatience and a disdain
For what we celebrate as meaning and success…
A delusional system of thought celebrating itself.
Time is our conveyor
But to what must we arrive?
Something within me wishes for another chance…
A chance to re-arrive to this moment
Free of an accumulated self.
Perhaps what we’re living for
Is not continuation;
It is the persistence to be free
Of who we’ve come to be
A liberation from the cage of the mind.
Five Abilities
There are only five abilities you need to cultivate in order to live your life well:
1. The heart and intelligence to meaningfully support another.
2. A deep reserve of love to create possibility, energy, emotion and harmony, artfully.
3. The humility and faith to stay committed to your present.
4. The good taste to enjoy the simple things in life.
5. The self-confidence to remain internally free- free of fear, need, desire and regret.
The fifth is the outcome of the first four abilities.
Boredom
Wanting to do something…
A search for meaning
And purpose and fulfilment
Or simply the desire for thrill and excitement
– Can all be traced to boredom.
Our being seeks purpose in doing.
When all of our doing
Progressively reveals to us
The utter futility of all our endeavours
Where things remain… not better, not worse…
We begin to look at life more inquiringly.
Life is the fount of eternal youth.
Each moment is a fresh possibility
In between your memory and desire
There is a silent and divine space
You’ve often sought this space
Like you do a shrine…
For quiet and peaceful reflection.
Your boredom was blindness
You could not see the necessity of nothingness.
Your boredom was ignorance
As your awareness was in a state of deep sleep
Your boredom was also the inertia
By which you moved towards your north star
Your boredom is your home
The sanctuary that you return to
When you’re exhausted chasing your dreams
Your boredom is what allows you
To keep things real.
What you were escaping from, is what you’ll end up escaping to.
Wit. Wisdom. Wonder... 