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consider it…

consider for a moment that you are not destined for something great – not in the way that we have imagined greatness. your name will not be remembered. no quotes, no recordings, no transcripts, no iconic images, no published journals.

consider that instead of a life legacy of fame, celebrity and followers, your entire purpose is to be part of something greater than any individual. that you are a temporary conduit of the miraculous mysterious unfolding of the entire universe.

would you be a cog in a wheel? a hater? would you commute? gossip? chatter? do things you don’t love? suffer?

visual: a bubble is simply space, air caught, floating through air, space in space. it is beautiful, awesome. it holds within it the same complex miraculous air that is all around it. and then it pops. it lands against some hard surface. it ceases to exist. but the space within it doesn’t cease, it just becomes part of the greater space, pushed by a fan to cool someone’s face, breathed into damaged lungs, transforming, transforming, but always there.

consider: we are like that. fragile and complex and temporary. made of the same stuff as planets, as soil, as oceans. we are heat, like suns, stars, fire. everything that exists, caught in the shell of us, and then the shell is gone, our singularity, our temporary container: poof.

bubbles don’t reason, surely they don’t come into existence and then fling themselves against the world in ways that can only end them…but we do. we reason, and with all of our capacity for dreaming and thinking and wondering and learning, we fling ourselves against each other and the world in ways that weaken our fragile containers.

the little stuff in me that feels familiar is like – pure mediation. there is something within me that feels like the air and space and stuff of mediation. not famous mediation, or celebrity mediation, or even highly paid mediation.

i have been thinking lately of why i don’t have more hustle. i get told often about things i could do to raise my profile, get more people to hear me and follow me. and i consistently have so little interest in that. the ideas that interest me most are not mine, they are collections and collisions of other people’s ideas and observations. i hold the ideas for a while, but the brain with which i process these ideas is far more temporary than the ideas themselves – they existed before me, they will exist and grow after my body and brain are gone.

consider: the world is full of information and experiences, truth and reflections. i see the species coming up with all kinds of ways to process that information – categorize it, label it, own it, store it, share it, be horrified by it, use it to shock and awe, ultimately forget it (how do you interact with…data?).

i can see the temptation of all of that – to feel like it is important to just process all the information coming at us. but sometimes i see that all the information creates patterns and pathways, a way forward, a fusion. sometimes i can see that middle ground of existence, or of organizing methodology, or of humanity, or of life – like a bright purple shell in clear water, or a point in space that is actually a dark hole of transformation. it’s not the opposition, or resistance, or liberalism, or progressive thought, or conservatism, the anarchy, the marches, the elections, the spirit of entrepreneurs, the globalization of every little thing…it’s nothing obedient or reactive at all. it’s where all of those things break out of our definition of them and merge, history happens when all of those forces merge, and it is the fusion that advances through time.

this isn’t to say i am anti-extreme, sometimes all of the energy of the world is tilted towards an extreme and the learnings from our pursuit and survival of that extreme become part of our collective knowledge and values. extremes are more important than mainstreams, because extremes are often compelled into action.

we haven’t yet figured out the way to act/live our values, collectively. we know, for instance, that it is right to at least speak of civil rights, equality, things like that. in practice, this is a generation of inhumane behavior and great inequality. we might as well name prisons after martin luther king, jr considering where black men reside these days. king’s name, his image, his words – they are applied to all sorts of things that have nothing to do with deep and pure nonviolence, with beloved communities, with his life’s work. the ideas he espoused are now carried by his name, not by a deep transformations in the way we are with each other as a mass level. his is one of the many names that we know now, and consider important, people who were only advancing a moment. their truth may or may not hold.

how can we use our reason to learn and live our values? stop floating, and start advancing our existence? if we were really listening, containing the truth of our ancestors and elders, and evolving…consider: what would you do?

how would you interact with your family?
who would you forgive?
who would you love?
what behaviors would you give up?
what practices would you begin?
who would you be?
what would you give?
how would you live?

i know i have considered these questions…
i would practice dependence and independence with my family.
i would compost, recycle, use less water, eat more greens and localize my diet. i would forgive myself for neglecting my body for so long.
i would give up reaction and practice being present.
i would choose love and do love.
i would be physical every day, i would give my time and my ability to mediate.

there is nothing stopping me…i am not angry anymore. i am giving up the hustle and getting into the flow.

consider – what are you being called to? why aren’t you listening?