I believe that giving yourself away to something greater than yourself — to love — is the greatest human capacity.
I believe that exploring oneself, understanding oneself, and overcoming oneself is the requisite pathway to getting over oneself and getting connected with Life.
I believe that gratitude, expressed, is living fully, and loving living, fully.
I believe I have been remiss in acting as I believe.
I have let the easy distractions, the gravity of others’ needs, the seduction of junk-food apps and flashbangs, overwhelm my senses and sense of self. The true path is quiet and pastel-toned, underneath and beyond the hypersaturated glitz.
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Before, I could avoid it — avoid connection, real feeling, and myself — by claiming I didn’t have the resources to surmount basic survival needs, to focus on myself.
Before, that may have been true.
But now I do.
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And as I take out the trash, water the plants, scoop the cat poop today. The nourishment of applying myself to real chores, to tending and nurturing my world, takes root. Realizations blossom:
There is one real way to live. Slow, and connected to the experience. Honest, and accepting of the experience. Grateful, and appreciative of the experience.
Everything else is distraction.
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Art is revelatory, connective, expressive for me.
The art of living in reality — attuned to What Is — is.
To achieve the greatest human capacity I must first know myself. This is prerequisite to knowing to what to give myself away. To what cause my energy is most aligned; to what efforts adding my invested effort will do the most good.
To learn myself, I must make art. I must express who I am, and listen when it speaks. That is how self-discovery works, for me.
I must slow down my tempo and let the feelings come. When they come, acknowledge them as just feelings. Let them flow through me.
If I want Life to flow through me, I must clear myself out of my own way.
It is time to make Art. To live slowly. To dedicate myself to healing, and to change towards wholeness and growth.
It’s time.
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Slowness, connection, honesty. Gratitude, openness, love, courage. Self-expression, self-knowledge, self-acceptance. And then sublimation: no-self; true donation and participation in the world.
I know the way.
No more excuses.