It’s the tail end of summer. The evening felt warm last night but the world felt cold.
I was walking the anxiety away. The pressure on my chest from the passage of time and the news of my mother’s illness weighed on me like a boulder.
So I whipped out what I always do in times likes these…
Pema Chödrön. One of my favorite Buddhist teachers.
I put on my headphones and listened to her calm, soothing voice remind me of impermanence. Remind me to just sit with the discomfort. “Humans don’t just feel good” she said. “Breathe into the discontent.”
I started to again reflect on attachment. How I must accept that nothing is forever. Life is not forever. I can’t hang on too tightly. Not to my youth, not my belongings, not my titles, not the people I love. I must learn to be with what is while it is and to let it go when it is time to let go.
ROAR!
I get it…I hear it. I know it. But it doesn’t make it any easier.
So let me sit with all of it. The part of me that knows better and the part of me that wants to squirm, complain, and throw a little tantrum.
—
On other news…
Lately everything reminds me of you.
There’s a canyon sized hollow without you here.
Sigh.
I am longing to soften.
To rest deeply in my body in powerful surrender. To fill my lungs with sweet, juicy air in full trust that it is all working in divine order. We are not late, we are not early, we are exactly where we should be.
Can I trust?
Can I really, really trust this time?
I am wanting to take the wild leap.
I am starting to think we live in a simulation. Or something sort of similar to it. Life’s too weird, too magnificent, too damn trippy not to lift a brow in suspicion that perhaps something’s up.
Too many strange coincidences leave my radar on alert.
I think I am ready.
I don’t know for what. But I am ready!
I can only imagine her pain…
Someone I know who I was recently smiling and taking selfies at the park with has lost her 17 year old daughter in a tragic car accident. How could we ever have predicted this moment 2 weeks ago. Don’t you wish you could turn back time and change things? Change outcomes?
GAH. The ache.
I’ve been sitting deeply with this topic of impermanence. The passage of time. Death.
I’ve come here to this space to share about it with you a few times.
Because friends, you and I are already dead.
Time and space is just catching up.
Why aren’t we talking about this loudly and wildly? Why are we walking around like zombies taking this whole experience for granted? Taking it all too serious.
Why are our systems not serving us? Why are we turning housing into a commodity to the point we labor just to generate PAPER for a structure that is already created to feed a system that is keeping our energy in survival mode?
WHY AREN’T WE USING OUR ENERGY TO CREATE HEAVEN ON EARTH?
Why aren’t we thinking about how we actually want to contribute to the planet to make it an epic experience vs how can I just make money?
Why aren’t we asking the big questions and solving the big problems?
Why aren’t we doing work that MAKES SENSE for the sake of having a WORLD WE WANT TO WAKE UP TO EACH DAY and contribute to?
YOU AND I ARE GOING TO DIE.
We need to wake up each day as if it were our last. Love like it was the last time. Enjoy our meal like it was the last. BECAUSE IT MAY VERY WILL BE.
Love. Forgive. Give. Help. Be kind. Be good. Make the art. Write the book. Post the content. Heal.
Leave the world better than you found it. It’s up to you and me. No one else.
No. Don’t point the finger at anyone else. YOU be good. You be kind. You do the right thing. ME be good. ME be kind. ME do the right thing. And if we each do this, we will see the ripple effect.
Ask questions.
Make noise. Don’t just PAY MORE RENT. Say NO to rental increases. Say NO to injustice.
—
Anyway.
That is my venting my own pain.
—
I am speechless. Humbled. Fallen to my knees in forced surrender.
I wish I could encapsulate the depth of my sorrow in words — perhaps this is what black holes are made of. Sorrow. Pain. Suffering. Grief. Deep devastating grief.
But even here. Even in this moment where my breath is taken, where I have lost my innocent hope –where I am faced with impermanence– where the pieces are falling away and turning to dust. Even here, I am choosing to love. I am choosing grace. Compassion. Gentleness. And to trust.
Lately I’ve been feeling all the feels I might as well be a musical scale.
But sadness is this underlying feeling that never really leaves. It’s always there. “I’m sad” “I’m sad” “I’m sad” plays in my head like tape recorder.
Sometimes I ask the voice why does it feel sad.
It tells me “all the reasons there is to be sad about.”
It’s annoying. Why do I have to feel so much? Then I feel guilty for calling it annoying rather than accepting my experience without judgement. I get sad for being sad. Then I’m double sad.
I’m sad for the suffering in the world. For the people who struggle. For my brother whose mental health has struggled and for all that ailed him in his life.
For the children who starve while Louis Voitton just sold another $2,600 hand bag. Are you fucking kidding me? What are we doing?
No shade to Louis or expensive handbags, but is that what really matters when there are people who can’t even eat a meal tonight?
What happened to your heart, human?
We shame and judge one another. We’re mean. We have guns and wars. We’re still so immature.
I’m sad.
I’m sad because of my own humanity. My own faults. My own shortcomings. My inability to save the world or even myself.
So I’m sitting with myself and my sins. Learning to accept what is without judgement and from this space do the best I can as best I can. Though it feels like it’s never enough. It’s like trying to put out a fire with a teaspoon of water. WTF is me and my little teaspoon really gonna do?
But perhaps if we united our forces. If we each brought a little cup. A little teaspoon. A bucket. A handful. A droplet. A case. A jet. A plane. A prayer. A whatever you can — maybe then we could see the results of a better world.
Will you help be the change?
I dunno man… and then what’s it all for anyway?
Health, peace, freedom, love is what I hope.
I oscillate between sadness, joy, anger, peace, love, hope, disappointment, frustration, fear, excitement, awe, hope, and sadness again.
The sadness gets in my way. It stops me from taking action. I can’t let it.
God, if you’re real will you help me and the world? I may not have all the strength in me but if you’re real and if you’re good and if you can hear me maybe you can please help.
Everything annoys me.
Well, not everything, but everything. You know what I mean?
I’m so damn annoyed with the humans. Seriously. Wtf.
We’re out of control.
Not that we ought to be “controlled” but we are still so unconscious and immature it’s annoying.
It’s our idiocy that pisses me off. And what’s worst is that we stand up for our stupidity, our immaturity, our blatant wrong doing. We are such silly little creatures. I’m pissed.
We think we’re something. We think we have the right to claim whatever we want and have rulership over another. I wanna vomit.
Anyway. I don’t wanna sit here and complain in my usual fashion but at the same time I kinda do.
The other day I was walking from the beach and everything that would normally bring me joy like the sunlight, the ocean, the grass, the beautiful homes, the humans brought me disdain. I am disappointed in our behavior. Our lies, our tricks, our infidelity. Our acts of wrong.
But what the fuck are we supposed to do about it? We’re on planet Earth. Are we all supposed to walk around like robots in polite fucking manner 24/7 saying all the “right” things and making no god damn mistakes and just being in some perfect fucking world where everything just goes exactly how we want and everything is dandy and everything is okay and everything is fine and nothing ever goes wrong and everything is perfectly safe and happy and everyone is on their P’s and Q’s and it’s just sunnyville all day and all night and always and ta da – there ya have it?
WTF are we really supposed to do? What is the real way to be? What are the REAL FUCKING RULES. What truly does matter? What truly is RIGHT?????
DOES ANYBODY FUCKING KNOW?????
DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON AND WHAT WE ARE ACTUALLY SUPPOSED TO BE FUCKING DOING SO WE CAN GO AHEAD AND DO THAT ALREADY AND CALL IT A DAY?
Why am I so angry?
😦
Sometimes I feel so angry.
At the injustices. At this nonsense of a fucking world we have created.
I know there is so much good. I know there is so much to be grateful for. And I am. It’s beautiful. There is so much to love and be grateful for. I’m writing on fucking computer for God’s sake.
I’m so thankful. From the bottom of my heart thank you. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for all you are.
But WHAT THE FUCK????
No, really, wtf?
Why do I just wanna get it over with already?
I do but I don’t. I wanna marvel at the existence of all there is for as long as I can. I wanna love deeply and perhaps even figure out how to extend life beyond this body. I believe we can. I believe we can transfer our consciousness to another host/body. I think we can preserve this. I think we can find a way to live and survive beyond the point our bodies give out.
Because what is death anyway? To my understanding when the body stops functioning then it can no longer hold the consciousness. I don’t know what happens to the consciousness when the body can no longer hold it. Does it go up into the ethers where the Wifi is? Does it disintegrate and is no longer available for access? I don’t know but we can research this if we weren’t so fucking busy, distracted, lost or working jobs just for money to pay bills or whatever else other nonsense.
WHAT MORE IMPORTANT THAT PRESERVING YOUR LIFEEEEE, helloooo!!!??
Listen, what I noticed is that if you don’t get hit by a truck or shot or killed in some way, you age until your body gives out. When the body gives out who the fuck knows where you go. I don’t KNOW, do you?
^ Don’t give me your nonsense theory because I’ll be like ok, cute – how do you KNOW – let’s prove and test it and calculate it and measure it and KNOW IT INDEED BY FACT AND TRUTH AS CLEAR AS WE KNOW AT WHAT TEMP WATER BOILS. Ya know what I mean??
Anyway….
What if we could either stem cell our asses or grow some biological body in a lab or even a robot body I don’t care… and what if we could either transplant the brain or electrode the consciousness from one host to the new host??
WOULDN’T THAT BE AMAZING?????? OR interesting????
I dunno.
Just a thought.
All in all I’m kinda pissed and annoyed but I’m working through it.
Bye.
my heart is broken in a trillion pieces. I’m standing over the devastating mess wondering if I’ll ever manage to put it back together.
What is it all for?
My soul cries and falls down to its knees. “Noooo. Why??”
I’m sad. Angry. Discouraged. Weary.
Questioning do I even want to live?
What’s it all for anyway?
“I don’t want to grow bitter” it says.
“I still want to believe.”
I used to think that life was magical. How could it not be? Look at it. Look at all the intelligence. The leaves. The fruits that grow from the tress. Our intelligent bodies. How marvelous.
Yet despite all this magnificence there is also this destructive, merciless force permeating reality. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, death, famine, war, pollution, fights, envy, politics, profit over people, hate, jealousy, deterioration, sickness, a lion gunning for the throat of the gazelle, chaos.
It’s a lot.
I don’t know what to make of it anymore. It’s like no matter what I do the outcome is just I’m going to age and die and so will you and everyone else. I don’t even want to share this because it sounds so negative. Because I could, instead, believe we end up figuring out how to preserve life, create peace and more harmony. But I don’t know – I’m disillusioned. Saddened that perhaps there is no God. That all the magic I believed in isn’t real. There is just this — this f%#23d up world with no happy endings.
I kept waiting for God. Waiting that he would show up and save the day. Now, my faith is crushed. My soul is lost. My heart so broken its become dust particles. I’m so deeply saddened.
But even still… a little tiny part of me insists “Don’t give up. You gotta believe. Please believe.”
Don’t let me grow bitter. < These are the words I wrote in my journal today.
I notice my child like spirit is getting washed away by the passage of time. My face less bright. My mouth more frowned.
SIGH.
I’ve been taking deep breaths.
“Just enough grace for this moment. Just enough grace for this minute.”
Leaning into trust minute by minute. Giving it all over to the force of time in full surrender when I feel like I can’t bare another minute.
I’m sorry world if I have failed you.
I am sorry for all we are going through.
Trigger Warning:
This blog post contains descriptions of death. This topic may be distressing or triggering for some readers. Do NOT continue on if this topic is upsetting or disturbing to you.
____
Have you ever seen a dead body? I hadn’t until today. It didn’t look real. It looked like a wax doll you’d see in the wax museum.
It was my neighbor.
I hear a man’s voice screaming outside my door. I open my door to check what the commotion was. I could see my neighbor’s door open. I thought maybe her dog ran out and something bad had happened to it. But then I see the dog, tail wagging. I see the guy she was dating wailing.
“What’s going on?” I inquire.
“She killed herself.” He responds.
I’m in shock and disbelief. I run into her apartment to see if there was any way to help or save her still. I yell out her name. I go into her room and try to look for her. I don’t see her until I look at the open closet and see her hanging in it. I couldn’t believe what I saw was real. It didn’t look real. Her hands were purple. Her feet purple. Her stomach swollen. Her mouth open and stuffed with what looked like dry blood. Her beautiful blue eyes open. It must have been days that she had been hanging there.
I wanted to touch her, check if what I was seeing was real – but I didn’t. I was in disbelief and in shock.
I walk out. The cops come.
Other neighbors come out. Everyone is crying.
She was a candle maker.
A sweet and beautiful young woman with so much to live for.
She lived in a cute, small one bedroom by the beach.
When I first moved here she gave me one of her candles.
And from then on I only bought them from her.
We weren’t that close, but I loved her and admired her so.
I would have never guessed she was struggling.
We truly just never know.
I wish I would have known.
My heart is broken. Yesterday I had one of her candles lit in my apartment, and I was thinking how I was looking forward to getting her summer collection. I had texted her last week saying I’d love to come support her at the farmer’s market.
How could this happen?
I just wanna say, if you are ever feeling alone or depressed please seek help. Please remember you are important. You matter. Your life MEANS something to people. Don’t let the voices of depression win. You matter. You’re important. You’re important. You matter.
I wish I could shout it from the roofs so every person who needs to hear it could hear it: You are important. You are loved. You matter. Please believe it.
______
Man, do we need a kinder world.
After what I saw today, I’m shook.
What should I direct my energy towards while I still can while I’m here?
I don’t wanna show off or compete or make anybody else feel like shit. Why are we not coming together more? Why aren’t we uniting more?
Why aren’t we making this world a better place for us all to live in?
So many are stressed because of bills.
Because of working jobs and barely getting by.
And that stress leaks into relationships.
We then have all this pressure to look a certain way, to have a certain car, to consume consume consume to make it look like we have it together. WHAT THE F IS GOING ON?
God help me. God help us.
God help our world.
I’m sending love to each and every one of you here. Keep believing for something good. Keep having faith. Keep being kind. Keep loving. Keep being the light. Keep learning. Keep growing. Keep the faith.
YOU ARE LOVED.
YOU ARE IMPORTANT.
Reach out for help if you need it. Don’t go at this alone.
Let’s keep holding on to the light and being more of the light in this world.
There is something so deeply poetic about endings.
Life is constantly in the process of moving, from one moment to the next.
The moment you started reading this is already over, you are now getting to the middle and now the end of this sentence.
It’s all evaporating. Morphing. Changing.
Everything changes.
And what hurts is that sometimes we wish it wouldn’t.
We wish we didn’t have to say good bye to the people and places we love because letting go of something we hold dear is painful.
There is something so deeply painful about going through the loss of what we love.
The loss of a lover, a friend, a parent, our youth.
There is something so bittersweet about this aspect of change. Change is what allows us to experience. To grow. To move through time.
Sometimes it means moving closer to the people and things we want, while other times moving further and further away.
The pain of a breakup feels like the soul is being ripped apart.
The pain of detaching. Healing. It hurts so profoundly.
Wounds can be complex in nature. They have dimension. They can bring both wisdom, sadness, fondness, appreciation, regret. Some wounds are like a soup carrying a mixture of flavors and many ingredients.
It’s so hard to say good bye sometimes.
Yet it’s these very endings that clear the same for the new. For rebirth. For transformation. We must let go of what is in order to step into what is becoming and what will be. It’s the endings that will make way for your greatest joys. For fresh energy to enter your life and new wisdom to be gained.
Until it’s time to say good bye to that too at some point. A new ending from another beginning.
Gahhhh.
I like to think of enduring endings the way you would a tattoo. They’re painful, but you just sit there and take the pain. Sometimes that’s all we can do. Is sit and take the pain. To fully sink into it and feel it. To embrace the shadow, the dark, the hurt, the loss, the sickness, the breakdown, the storm. To look it all in the face and simply endure. Simply be with it. Simply accept that it hurts and that all we can do in this moment is feel the pain. There is no where to go or hide. The only place is here and now and this pain.
Oof.
Boy, I tell ya. This life. It’s a sick, wild, beautiful, wonderful, sad, bittersweet piece of art.
mmmmm
the depths of the depths of my soul craves the depths of the depths of experience
oh how I yearn for those beautiful, precious moments that slip through time and evaporate into the ether
how I wish I could hold them longer, how I wish I didn’t have to let go and could savor this gift forever
sigh…
I get sad sometimes over the passage of time
over the thought of death and letting go
and how this life is temporary and who knows where it all truly leads
It’s fucking nuts honestly
I’m sad over the aging of my mother
and how I wish I could give her the world
I’m sad over my own aging
I’m sad over the suffering that exists…
I wish I could do a million things at once
Go on a road trip on a warm summer day, look at the starts while smoking a joint on top of the hood of a jeep with someone who just gets me and the vibe is just right…. and also write a book, teach a course on personal finance that helps the average worker and laborers know what to do with their hard earned money so they aren’t stuck working so hard without seeing their money actually grow.
I wish I could travel to Thailand, Bali, Spain, Portugal, India, Italy, Greece, Turkey, London, Ireland, The Virgin Islands and swim naked in the ocean in some other beautiful island where the water is calm and just the perfect temperature – not hot, not cold ~ just right.
I wish I could reach more people and help them on their journey somehow, some way. To make friends from all the world and get a flower tattoo on my back to go with the humming bird waiting to kiss it.
I’m fucking sad bro
For all the reasons there exist for a human to be sad about…
A moment of silence please as we sit and acknowledge the dark side…the emptiness… the void…the stuff that we wish weren’t so.
……………………
I wish I could live a thousand lives
Walk the streets of New York City dressed in edgy but classy fashion while living in a beautiful Manhattan apartment filled with books, tapestries, and vintage decor.
Sigh…
At the same time I am grateful
Grateful for the experience of experience
Grateful for it all even though I have no idea what the f is going on
reflectoutloud.com 