The Wilderness Years

A common theme in great success stories are the wilderness years. These are separate from the youth stories, they are after some initial hope is realized. This is the way of truth and it is also the way towards success or the abundant life, and regardless of circumstance, the narrative can be traced in almost anyones life--likely it has to do with brain development more than age, however age makes it seem more common because the majority of persons are still developing in concert socially. Carnegie quit near these years (28); Jobs was ousted from Apple around these years (30); and even Christ himself as a the post pre-figure for most Western hero or comeback stories began his work at 30 to end it and start its next phase at 33. His first tempting is in the desert, where he prepares to carry the famed Cross: Turn this stone into bread, and Christ says, "No." It is the great, "No!" which is also ultimately our greatest "Yes!" Or even a great, "Yes, and" - because I'm into Improv.

In at 23 and out at 32 - my previous employer was formative and has nearly a decades worth of lessons to plume richly for the rest of my life. Most all lessons are the same - Trust God. That's the lesson, and we learn it at a higher level with each pass.

The ceiling of a self-concept must be lifted. We will either be courageous, or self-sabotage, but our spirits, in their yearning for God--which is in some manner, the life abundant--will not abide in worldly comforts and basic wealth. We just won't do it. Any human in-touch with this ether agrees: there is room for Apollo in Dionysus' Court and vice versa- they just can't run one another's domains. This is a great lesson in practice. To remain slightly uncomfortable, actively - this is also a champions way.

Shaved my head. Space Monkey, shot out into space for the greater good of mankind (Palahniuck reference). One sinks to the level of their training and I did this 16 years ago when Fight Club was relatively new. This is your burning hand, it's right here. Be your own cavalry - a solider on our Lord's chariot; we are not volition or design; we are the universe come alive and dancing, bent on our destruction in the ultimate glorious firework of our own lived life, a shimmering testament to the love of God.

Happy Independence Day!

Terror

The judgment sets in long before the work ever begins; when the judgment sets deep, the work ceases before it begins.

-1-

Thou shalt not judge is being said to us also for ourselves, and I’d reason, primarily for ourselves—for to love others, we must love them as we do ourselves, assuming we love our lord God above all things.

Drop the word ‘god,’ from the previous sentence and its palatable to most; even adding the word, ‘gods,’ and ensuring no capital ‘g’ and its more palatable to ‘intellectuals.’ There are all sorts of lords we kneel to; the keenest of us are aware of our slaveries—those excesses and deficiencies, which catch us at our worst with ourselves.

-2-

How to reflect the light? To let it burn and shine? Or better to know when the sun would blind the eyes of someone only comfortable with shadows on cave walls? To know when better to seduce to wisdom than impose it; to draw it out instead of impregnate it.

Completion is important, and habit is the terror or the partner of completion. Activity is the harbinger of habit, and feelings are the forerunner to activity - leaving thought the precursor to feelings.

So keeping thoughts shiny allows the light to reflect off what one completes by the habits one forms, and through the feelings that activate them.

-3-

We must abstain from judging ourselves too harshly and be ashamed to catch ourselves whipping ourselves, surprised look on our faces painted with rage, hand in the air as the other clutches the collar of our youngest self.

God help us. 

Only In Discipline is There Freedom

Writing on a computer is different than when using pen and ink.

The medium affects the work.

We are the medium for the work being done in the world.

"Impress your will upon the millennia," as Nietzsche’s work says.

Incendence v. Transcendence

The concept is terrific. It reminds me of the end of Narnia, where CS Lewis says the world, as one got deeper in, somehow got bigger and more beautiful.

Incendence is the further pluming of our self, deeper in and into larger, more beautiful spaces. 

Understanding the difference in what we are and what we do helps us bridge the gap between what we’re doing and what we come alive most in, and by extension, what we most bring alive. When people recommend chasing your passion, I think this is the route they’re talking about.

I’ve been doing improv for about two years.

It brings me alive and I think I also bring it alive.

It is where I find myself blooming. 

I also am learning a lot about leadership.

Over the course of a few years I’ve amassed a great set of knowledge and practice, including the patience to enjoy it gain momentum over decades.

This presumes I make it into coming decades.

As my professor said, we just have to keep our eyes open to stay alive. 

He was helicoptered out of Beirut with his wife and young son soon after the Dean of the university he was teaching at was assassinated. I listen when he speaks.

His story has gained momentum over time.

The narrative we use is critically important.

The story of ourselves we tell ourselves.

The future we have and the past we retain, the present we experience, forever transforming into the history we choose from.

I’m only writing to write.

The discipline is more important than the expression because it is through discipline that expression finds the power in its voice.

It’s startling how little new I—or perhaps anyone—is really saying.

If you get anything from me, it’s that everything I have came before me for centuries till I was born to express it during our time.

I was listening to some of the horrible music I made over half a decade ago and before.

When I was making those songs, I dreamt about people finding it after my body of work had run its course and they were still hungry for more. 

If they find it now, and they like it, I would probably turn in my grave.

Laughing is a very important component of my conversations.

So I hear these songs and instantly begin in on a dismissive narrative about all my previous work.

The danger is the habit extends ultimately to most of what I do regardless of the quality of expression. 

Artists have written this off as part of their process for years, but its only partially true. 

The other half of the equation is that we build mountains over decades to spend other decades mining through them for gold. 

It takes a ton of ore for a few milligrams of gold. Something outrageous like that. 

Those horrible songs are the ore of my present, pregnant with gold within them.

I’m about five songs into a third and maybe final album.

I’d like to keep making them; as their quality improves so does the expense. A pleasant problem.

I need to start making it more self-sustainable if I can continue at this level and pace. 

The work will speak for itself and if it brings the opportunity for more then it’s probably a good bet that’s a way my voice should come out.

Improv has been that in two short years, but I also spend at least a few hours on a main stage every week.

The other four songs of the album may have a few bits of gold from the decades gone by. 

As if time teaches us to smelt and refine ourselves so that we ultimately glow like the precious rarities we are. 

Incendence to passion.

If you’re reading this, thanks. 

Isn’t it funny that we will probably forget this moment together?

Focus

1.

For the past four/five years I’ve had a theme running. Here’s what I’m talking about, how it came around, and what it does should emerge as I express those two points:

The idea began with the recollection of how it felt to hear about a 26 year old when you were a 5-7 years old. I had a crush on a 22 or 26 years old and always believed I loved older women since then. She was kind to me as women who think a young boy is cute do; however as a young boy, this was a validation of everything the movie, “Big,” with Tom Hanks is about—there is some magical thing. As I thought about how 26 felt to a 5-7 year old, I then remembered how 30 looked. Woah – it was within reach compared to grandparents ages, but just outside the conception – 30? Jeez, I couldn’t wait to turn 10 and these people are in their 30s!

            This same narrative is essentially carried forward through the teenage and especially the 20s. In the 20s – the 30s loom, heavy with baggage from a thousand sources all bemoaning its existence. It’s all ridiculous really. Age is important, but we trace it beyond the scientific data of cell regeneration rates and begin right with the presumptions. I think people in mid to late 80s through their 100s (and maybe much sooner for some) feel this social weight acutely. The chasm they sit across is the distance we have from the thoughts of our own mortality and death.

            So as it goes, I began saying, “one inherits the earth at 30,” and was and continue to be massively excited by those crossing that threshold. There are murmurs of this positivity about aging here and there, and that’s good – the narrative of age must transition to one of appreciation for the unique experience each decade had the potential to bring along. The understanding of self plods along as we try and fly through these generations. Christ also began his work towards the cross at 30 according to Christian scripture; Buddha leaves at 29;Pope Innocent III authorized the St. Francis’ order when he was on the cusp of 30; St. Augustine was converted at 33 - though his roots come sooner.

            Conversely, I say that, “we give it back up at 80,” – the reason is that the generations that crossed 30 when we cross 80 will have more primacy in the minds of youth than we will – though the choices we make while we all inherit the earth set up the foundation for the next. These are, let me be very clear, simple psychological lines to make rudimentary pieces to construct conversations about experience and life. The ultimate expression of life is whatever it is breathing in you reading this, and it has its own agenda – this is just conversation.

           

2.

So we have 50 years where the world is hours – and each year I began following a theme, so that at the end of my short life, I could have words to say to a loved one – or at least have a story I can hopefully remember or care about; who knows, all my thoughts on dying are conjured from a lack of intimate knowledge and likely some kind of fear – not of dying necessarily, but of becoming an invalid—even the word—my goodness right, an “invalid,” we dismiss so much wisdom from our font of young pride.

            The first year was 2011: The Year of the Win.

The idea was essentially activity; that’s what I learned. If you actively lose you still win a lesson, but if you passively win you actually lose because you have no assurance of how to recreate it.

So that was the year of the Win.

            The second year was 2012: The Year of the Great.

The idea was essentially, 1) take your own advice 2) submit your eyes to Christ to perceive beauty over cynicism/ opportunity over impediment, and 3) allow your actions to be a language unto themselves.

            The way this worked that year was I would take time to actually write down the advice I gave myself and then make a plan for it—that is what I would advise anyone, so I started taking my own. Just basic shit – writing down what I’d like from each of the four quarters of the year, how I might be able to get that going, etc. It was a clear direction, and like Bruce Lee says, “sometimes a goal is just something to aim at.”

Submitting my eyes was an interesting one, and one that stuck fairly well since then – to see where the opportunity for anything is in an initially perceived impediment; to try and choose beauty over cynicism. These things are worked on continually and constantly with no gauge of perfection, only progress.

Lastly, it was my actions as a language – that one also persists and is very fun; if I am typing an email that says, “I’ll get that to you by…” I usually catch myself, assess my flow, and if possible just get whatever that later task is taken care of now. All of these need to be disciplined, refined, and scaled – but it’s progress.

The third year was 2013: The Year of the Rest & Respect.

This was great – 1) Complete the rest to gain the rest, 2) Respect the opportunities others are given, and 3) respect the opportunities you are given.

Complete the rest means wipe away the crumbs, do the extra work; finish what’s sitting on your mind so that you can actually take a break—gaining rest. The 2^nd and 3^rd are self-explanatory.

The fourth year was 2014: The Year of the Joy & Achievement Flows.

1) Be Patient, 2) Be disciplined, 3) Let it come and let if flow.

Let it flow was very important, because let it go indicates a pushing away, and the best things in life truly flow through us. Furthermore, studies on flow states support this theory.

The fifth year is this year, 2015: The Year of the Generously Focused.

1) Give listening, 2) Build resistance, endurance, and recovery, and 3) pick two.

Giving listening is very active, and I’m learning about all this now as we’re just rounding out 4 months in. Building resistance, endurance, and recovery is three separate states of stress and each has it’s own disciplines – these three categories allow me to figure out the optimal expression for each of the three states at any time during the day—that includes surprises, which are generally building resistance but can also become endurance. Recovery is actually a lot harder than it seems, but I’m learning all this now. Pick two is really that simple, I pick the next two things I’ll do. So in this case, finish this up and post this—I won’t even think much on image or no image and what image etc. I just have two things in front of me to do; I can think after that.

3. 

The whole thing is deliberate, and they way I come up with them starts 6 months into the previous year - and a lot of time, attentiveness, and prayer. So far, if I’m able to speak about the story of my life and what someone could take from it as I die, I would say, “Win great rest and respect. Joy and achievement flows, generously focused.”

           

I Know I'm Not The Only One

I need to write.

I just need to write.

Without reflection I am not living up to my humanity.

The ability to remap my brain and till a new soil for coming days in the present is done with the toil of reflection.

I wonder if at any time in our human history the majority has enjoyed reflection. The greatest authors are capable of it. To see another and show themselves their own height and depth, we must be courageous about the bare stare with which we look upon ourselves.

The way we highlight those that plume the spectrum of humanity indicates a need to encourage that for the majority, and so implies a lack of this kind of passion for reflection in most people.

Frankly, I think everyone does it, we just need to be trained on it continually. The questions we ask and the words we use reflect in the answers we glean and the interpretation we carry with us; in turn affecting our behaviors which stream through in habits and directly impact our one precious life.

I write words, I live a life that exists outside those words. We are all bigger than any definitions we inhabit.

The habits we have define us more than the intentions we have, though those intentions are a powerful director in our stumble—that is, progress—forward.

The kind of life I wish for lives on the other side of action that I am either too scared or too stupid to make. Perhaps the kind of life I wish for exists beyond the wishing for a life and instead the living of my own with an ever increasing devotion.

The great questions, like how can one live a full life—or an exceptional life—these are what obscure my view. In the separating out of what that means, I think we see how we apply ourselves and in the recognition of those actions we begin to find our capacity. How can we find the limit if we don’t push it constantly?

We live so many lives in one, and yet we are living all those lives. What does it matter what this makes us, for we are bigger than any definitions we inhabit.

It’s worth reflecting on the character we see walking around in our skin living the life we think is our own with a deep devotion to reflecting the greatest love and joy we can for those around us. The heat we put out shines back on us; and when we start to die out, I can only hope the life I contributed to blossoms forward.

The human condition is a never ending source of the richest reflection for me.

The Western Black Rhinos are officially extinct today, and the last Northern White Male Rhino is guarded twenty-four hours a day with armed guards, fitted with a radio transmitter, and we cut off his horn to make him less attractive to poachers.

The human condition is a never ending source of the richest reflection.