leaving the world

“If life teaches you anything, it’s this: you can never dispel another person’s illusions. No matter how much empirical truth you have to the contrary, they will hang on to their false beliefs with a vehemence that might baffle and infuriate you, but which (you realize much later on) is their only defense against a truth that would undermine everything they hold dear. Once they have embraced the lie, nothing you can say, or do or prove will shift them away from it. The lie becomes the truth- and it can never be challenged”.

– Douglas Kennedy (from his novel, Leaving the World)

Many of us are waiting for someone else to give us permission to be fully alive- to really do the things we want to do. We're waiting for a job. We're waiting for someone esle to believe in us. We wait for other things too. The kids to be older. The economy to improve. Maybe we will one day be better, stronger, have more life experience or somehow become more well suited to be who we really are. Maybe we will become more perfect. Then we can really do it. Then we can really live... And what does that mean? We're not sure, but it has to be better than this...

On some level. On some simple, basic, fundamental level, we know what we love. We must do that thing that we love. We must be that thing that we love. We must choose that love. The seas will part.

"You are not just a meaningless fragment in an alien universe, briefly suspended between life and death, allowed a few short-lived pleasures followed by pain and ultimate annihilation. Underneath your outer form, you are connected with something so vast, so immeasurable and sacred, that it cannot be spoken of - yet I am speaking of it now. I am speaking of it now not to give you something to believe in but to show you how you can know it for yourself". -Eckhart Tolle

security

Security
by Hunter S. Thompson (1955).

Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? Has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better. What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?

Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

Street II

This guy could probably use a beer, I thought. And maybe a couple dollars, both of which I have more of than I really need and it's damn cold outside. I had picked up a six pack from the local grocery store and some stuff for dinner. I needed to study for an exam and had found that a few beers really help me to relax and focus, oddly enough, but I didn't need 6 of them. Anything I left in the fridge was always consumed by my roommate by the next morning anyway. I asked the guy sitting outside with his cardboard sign if he would like a beer or two.

The kid was crying. Sure, he would like a beer, though he seemed pretty indifferent to my micro brews and my cash. I sat down on the street beside him and explained that I was picking up some beer to help me study. I pulled a couple of bottles out of the 6 pack while a cop rolled by watching closely as I contributed to the delinquency of a minor. The kid asked me what I was in school for. I told him I was taking a couple of graduate level psychology classes at PSU. He seemed genuinely interested in my life. A real nice guy. Obviously very distressed at the moment.

Later, over dinner at my house, he told me he was crying when I met him because a guy had just given him a candy cane and he was thinking about Christmas and his mother who had recently died, leaving him eventually homeless. He was feeling nostalgic. Really missing his mom. So fucking sad. A real nice kid. He helped me haul out my trash and recyclables and turned me on to Tupac. I guess Tupac was a Christian or something and he was a Christian and liked his music. We listened to rap, drank beer and he used my computer while I studied for the exam I would take the next day after work.

Working full time and taking two classes was stressing me out. I had developed an eye twitch. Having this kid around was great. He was seriously great company after he got over thanking me every five minutes for letting him crash at my place. He had some kind of run in with a wild animal the night before and was not looking forward to being on the street again. Some critter was scratching at his face. He never saw what it was. Creepy. Horrible, really.

The next morning he walked me to my bus stop with a new back pack I had given him, my bus pass, and a list of local services for youth. I left him my number, but didn't hear from him again and assume he got himself set up with a place to crash and get on his feet again. My co-workers insisted that I could have gotten knifed when I shared the story later that morning. They also thought it was a real act of compassion. It saddens me to think that something so simple- giving someone a place to crash during record cold temperatures is such a noble and courageous act. You would have done the same thing. That was my response. People are always doing kind things for other people in distress. When we normalize something like homelessness, we stop seeing the suffering, but in most situations, when we see that someone needs something, our natural impulse is to respond.

We have given ourselves pernission to make homelessness OK. We have not prioritized taking care of our communities at the most basic level and have somehow all decided that it's someone else's problem or that there is nothing we can do about it. This asumption is the reflection of our current cultural paradigm that dehumanizes people at all levels. Homelessness in America is an indication that we have really messed some things up and that we want to kill the messenger by ignoring the problem.

I aced my exam that evening, but more importantly, really questioned the type of education I was recieving and what was really informing all of our lives and life decisions. I feel indebted to that kid for the perspective that he gave me and hope that he's doing OK.

2010

A new year. A great time to remember to live on purpose. We are responsible for what happens in our lives. Our experiences are the direct result of our intentions either conscious or unconscious. It is sometimes more comfortable to believe that our lives include a large number of random events that we have nothing to do with. This is the current dominant perspective. This thought process allows us to stay in situations that we have outgrown. Our life events become excuses for the reasons we aren't doing the things we love, the things we really want to do- or the reasons we have no idea what we love or what we want or how we would really like to compose our lives.

***

Ritualizing the beginning of a new year with resolutions or intentions is appropriate. Giving ourselves a hard time about our habits, our bodies or our life choices is usually the result however... I resolve to- fill in the blank- because I feel bad about where I'm at in my life if I really look at it closely enough. This type of new year's resolution is more often than not- not empowering enough to generate the excitement necessary to really reconnect- and reconnection is what we are looking for in creating resolutions or identifying conscious intentions. Reconnecting with our values. What do I really want? Why? How will that impact the day I have every day? How I feel every day? The real quality of my life... My future? My personal story? My family, the earth or other things I care about, etc., etc.

***

A year passes quickly. Making time to clarify our values and recognizing that making choices to live in alignment with them will have an outcome can be really empowering. If we actually know what we care about and take steps to live in alignment with what is important to us, we will have a different life. a different life. a different life. There is an initial commitment necessary to get to a platform where the choices we are making (on purpose) become reinforcing. When we reach that point, it's easy. We have changed our habits. We have changed our life events. We have reached a goal and can continue to reach new goals. We do this anyway- especially if we are generally happy with our lives- but to really do it intentionally is immensely powerful.

***

We can expect results from making strong decisions to live with purpose, with a mission, with a clear objective- even if that objective is to slow down and take a step back from what can feel like an insanely driven culture. Driven towards what? First checking in- what do I care about? Then going for it. Then expecting things to really change- because they really will. It is inevitable. We are masters or our own lives and the sooner and more fully we realize this, the sooner and more fully we will begin to really live.

flatlining

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
- from Nelson Mandela's famous speech written by Marianne Williamson

***

We are, most of us, just comfortable enough, that we are not pushed beyond our boundaries to discover our true capabilities. When we are confronted with something significantly bigger than us, when life becomes desperate, we find that we are "powerful beyond measure". There is an inherent strength in all of us that emerges when we are truly tested- and we all want this- this chance to be, as Joseph Campbell would say, on the hero's journey. The stuff of movies. Real obstacles to overcome. A real battle. A real struggle. Something to make us feel alive. Something to get through. A way to triumph and become truly human... but we are instead just stuck in traffic. Getting through the day is our biggest adventure...

***

It is possible to reframe our lives so that the mundane tasks we find ourselves completing daily become less banal- and offer opportunities to really move beyond the apathy so many of us feel to something else entirely... What if the real struggle, the real battle, the real living is all about the "fight" to become fully human in all of this emptiness. We are flatlining. The adventure is the waking up.

***

Every step towards this aim is cumulative. Every doubt we have about our lives is a window into something real. Every mindful action. Any time we give our full attention to another person, to a task, to our own breathing, our beating heart... we are waking up. The adventure is the waking up.