Peering into the Deep

I think it’s severely uncomfortable to take a deep, longitudinal look at our lives, which is why it can be so difficult and why so few people regularly do it.

When we ask ourselves things like “why am I here” or “what’s the meaning of all this,” it surfaces our greatest fear: the unknown. Our brains, while possessing the ability to ponder such questions, evolved to be capable of reasoning—it was a path toward sustained survival. We struggle with things that are seemingly unknowable.

It’s also a deeply personal experience, muddled by our individual psychologies. But if we are to pursue a better future together, we must face it. We must face it both individually and together, because when we communicate with each other about these most important of things, we’ll realize that we’re all the same. And that the universe is magical, something to be explored and experienced. Shall we do it together?

Different at Home

There’s always a reset when coming back home. It can be difficult every time, but it also presents another opportunity to build new habits, and reaffirm foundations. I always enjoy the stillness in keeping company with my tribe, even if I was just traveling with them. Somehow it’s different when you’re home.

Exploration Return

It was a very successful trip to Nashville, but it’s always good to be home. After hot fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, and good ole’ Tennessee whiskey, it’s time to rest at home. It was my first visit to the state of Tennessee, and it was fascinating to experience the differences from California. The United States is a huge diverse country, and I’m grateful I had the chance to explore one part of it.

Progress will happen

I told my wife today that things will continue to get better. I believe most people are good. Altogether I believe people are reasonable, that we all want the same basic things for the same reasons. It might not always be pretty, and it might feel much too slow, but progress will be made. It requires tremendous effort, some togetherness, and a lot of outreach and organization. It will never be guaranteed and must always be fought for and protected. That’s the nature of the universe. Can we stare it down in the face and accept that it will require our consistent vigilance, but that it will also happen?

Diverse Nashville

Tourism is certainly a major industry in Nashville, and for a reason: they do a good job here. It’s fun to eat and drink your way through town. But there’s also a ton of history in this city, and this area of the country. I’ve realized during my visit just how big and diverse it is in the United States. We all may eat and live differently, but we’re also all the same. We all breathe, we all laugh and smile and cry for the same reasons, and we’re all human.

Music City Muse

Music City certainly has lots of music, as well as lots of good food. There’s a charge in the air when walking around downtown; the people here are upbeat and happy. Lots is happening constantly, and the energy permeates out from the cool confines of the AC into the hot streets. Tourists like myself abound everywhere around Broadway, and the honky tonks reverberate with sound. Nashville is indeed a place of action. Swaller n holler, and get to dancing, because in Tennessee’s capital life is good.

Off to Nashville

I was asked a couple times what I was most excited about in visiting Nashville for the first time. Music and food is obviously a priority, but my answer was always the same: I’m eager to explore a new place with an open mind, to learn what it’s all about. Nashville will undoubtedly be very different from the Bay Area, and I’m excited to experience it. Our diversity in culture is part of what makes us American, and part of being human. When we develop an understanding of our differences, we can better work together through all the important common traits we all share. Welcome to Tennessee. 

Don’t Worry Be Happy

Today when I was on my run I randomly thought about a Facebook post I made a long time ago, back when the platform was still only accessible to college students. It read something along the lines of “I’ve realized I’m really happy, and I’ve decided it’s going to stay that way.”

It made me smile to myself because I’ve been trying to practice gratitude recently. I really don’t have any reason not to be happy—none of us do—if we start from a place of gratitude. The world is amazing, and most people are good. Don’t worry, be happy. 

Welcoming Optimism

I feel optimism creeping back into our collective psyche. It might have to do with the weather warming in the northern hemisphere, the full bloom of spring and the tantalizing whiff of approaching summer… or it could be something else. It just seems like we are over the bullshit. Yes, there are serious problems to consider and solve. Yes, there are many blockers to those solutions, many times simply ourselves. But that also means we have the power to change them. If we rectify the hate, and listen to each other, there’s no limit to our potential. We can enjoy this truly big beautiful and amazing world. We can change the world. 

Reminder

Today is a special day in the United States because it’s the one in which we honor our parentage. Every human being that’s ever lived has come from a mother. It’s easy to get caught up in the bullshit of the world, but I think that’s staggering. Where would we be without them? Because it obviously goes beyond the birth. We are who we are because of mothers. It will never be repaid. All one can say is thank you. 

The Tribal Way

I spend most of my time on weekends with family, and that makes me grateful. It is our greatest freedom in the modern world: how to spend our time. I find it best to either explore, or visit with people we love. Won’t we be more likely to want to make the world a better place when we experience it with our tribe?

Acting Accordingly

Today I held the baby that I mentioned yesterday for the first time, and it was profound. A lot of my friends have young children now, and I relish the opportunities to spend time with them, to literally live alongside them. As a species and a planet we possess the most remarkable quality we’ve yet discovered in this universe: the ability to produce life. It is incredibly precious, indeed the most precious phenomenon of which we know. We must act accordingly. 

New Life

One of the most important people in my life had a baby this week. New life coming into the world. As I continue to get older and experience new things, I can’t get over how wonderful this life is. We have so much to celebrate. It’s okay to be sad sometimes when sad things happen, but the gift of life is so incredibly precious and amazing, it would be a shame to not embrace it wholly and fully. I cannot wait to meet you Xander, and I’m so eager to be in your life. We are human, and we are alive. It’s truly a big beautiful amazing world; how lucky we all are. 

Beginning with Breath

I’ve been trying to be more consistent with my daily mediation in terms of regularity and duration. Still to this day, it astounds me how powerful the breath is. We breathe our entire lives, from our first moments until our death. Most of the time we let the involuntary muscles run it in the background. But it is with the breath we can find presence, we can find calm. We creatures on this planet evolved to breathe, a form of continuously interacting with the matter of the universe outside ourselves. It is through this interaction that we can experience union with the universe. Perhaps if we visit this communion more often, we can be more at peace, and thus impart peace upon the world. It truly all begins with the breath. 

Alive and Human

I rose early this morning to exercise, and I felt so alive, so human, when I returned home. There’s something fundamentally human about awakening at dawn and exerting full energy first thing in the morning. It’s ancestral. It’s how we have evolved over the past 2 million years. We are born to move. 

Perhaps this simple yet profound characteristic shapes us more than we know. How many of our larger problems can be attributed to a first world sedentary lifestyle, our poor diets and diminished mental health? Maybe if we get collectively healthier, mind body and soul, we’ll have more will, more energy, and more solutions to offer to our current problems. 

We need to feel alive, to feel human. If we feel these things, we truly live. And that takes care of everything else. 

Living through Action

As I get older I see how elusive time can be, how it keeps ever flowing, slipping through your fingers. That is, if you’re focused on preserving it. I’ve been fortunate to have some great role models who have demonstrated that truly living does not revolve around a preoccupation with the amount of time left, but rather taking action on the things we enjoy and the things that matter. As we claw our way out of this pandemic psychosis, fighting against the technology and mechanisms in society that polarize and shape us, we must remember that. This world is beautiful, and we humans can be good. We can learn from our time, our mistakes in the past, but what matter is our collective indicative to take action now. To live out our lives together, and to work toward something greater than us, so that future generations may enjoy something even better. 

Being a Good Ancestor

Today I looked upon old photos of my ancestors, and it struck me that they had no idea who would come after them two or three generations later. Much like myself, someone without children…who knows who will come after me 100 years later if I decide to start a family? All we can do is enjoy the time allotted to us, and contribute to the betterment of the future. Our actions echo into eternity, creating circumstances of which our descendants inherit. What kind of world will it be?

Saturday Ease

Maybe it’s the sprig that comes with a pleasant Saturday morning, but I feel at ease with the world, with life. We tend to fuss about “the things,” myself especially included, and in the grand scheme of it all, it really doesn’t matter. We’re okay. We’re going to be okay. As a species we need to do some things, and try to work together, and that’s all we can do. We are afforded such a small flicker of candlelight to be alive. We really should just be. It’s a big beautiful amazing world.. let’s feel alive in it. 

Humans in the Cosmos

There’s a difference between drive and pressure, or eustress and stress. Just like there’s a balance between effort and rest; one can’t do either all the time. There’s a need for both. It seems one of the most important skills, or journeys, in life is to explore and learn that balance for one’s self. We enjoy a beautiful planet, interaction and love with our fellow social creatures, and the ability to create, to contribute. We are also atoms and dust, at the end of the day, a mere temporary form in the dynamic changing of matter in the universe. It’s all completely surreal. Life is good and simple: strive and relax, ponder and enjoy. How wonderful it is to be human. 

Grace for Life

There will always be hard days. I don’t think what we wish for is only easy days ahead. I think we seek hope, some type of reassurance that it will be okay. It seems we do this through our dying day. 

The only, for lack of a better word, remedy that I’ve found for this is gratitude. Graciousness for all that has been and was, for all that is, and for whatever may be, even with the uncertainty of the future looming large. 

The mechanism toward acceptance of this life, this reality, is gratitude. Because only with gratitude can we fully be present, which is where all our dreams and effort and yes, tears and sadness, but most importantly, our living, happens.

My appreciation for gratitude, when I’m able to channel it, extends beyond what’s possible to be conveyed in writing. In some absurd way, we are cursed yet blessed beings. Being human is all we know; how good at it can we be, with each other?