The lyrics were visual, kinetic, and emergent--a stream of consciousness that flowed between description and exposition. I was transported to ‘another place and another time.’ The instrumentation was layered and played spontaneously. The songs exuded aliveness and joy that permeated the poesy and yet arrived in simple garb.

After that seminal album, I wondered if other artists felt liberated to approach their music with similar abandon and subversion.

I giddily discovered Winter by the Rolling Stones a couple of months ago. I thought it a stylistic homage to Astral Weeks and yet distinct–a stirring meditation that gave me pause. It told me something about love that I had missed, which is why we listen.

Then I listen again on repeat–decoding and decanting. Letting this unearthed appellation breathe. Beckoning its strings and strums to shower their pent-up electricity onto my waiting ears. Riding the locomotion of the drums and chord changes that crash the emotional waves and stir the ingredients.

A transmission from the Gods. A gleaming artifact unearthed. An artist’s expressionist rendering of a moment and a mood so distinct. We are invited into his and her private wavelength, their sacred love-bubble. Yet such offerings are a universal decree about what it means to be alive and human and ensouled.

These offerings grant us overt permission to feel and yearn. To try and capture the essence of a moment–to bridge the distance between two beleaguered spirits. Like any real love song, Winter is a public baring of the soul. An unconditional surrender. When no known recourse is revealed. When no salve soothes the ache, art is the only afforded option. They and we venture to distill a fading sunset and its synchronistic starlings as they flutter and vanish.

The song couches its meaning in elemental allusions–seasons and winds–and the imagery they inspire. This imparts a cold weariness, but the telling feels warm and open as I listen. He speaks his laments and and yet counters with a hope that change and renewal will arrive with Spring.

I love how the narrator speaks of events and locations that don’t reveal much to the listener. Like it’s not for us to know what those places mean. The restoration plays. The bell, book and candle. California and Stone Canyon. We are left to imagine what secret meaning is encoded. But maybe the song is saying that the details are superfluous. Because the details don’t last. Perhaps it’s enough for us to just witness his love letter.

And to remember the odes we’ve sent--and the missives not fired.

To cherish our memories as he savors his. To honor our connections, strained though they may be. The souls we know and knew. The people and places and faces we remember--that showed us who we are. Those that awoke us from slumber. The ones that stir us.

He finally speaks directly to her as the song comes to a crescendo before closing.

‘Sometimes I think about you, baby’

‘Sometimes I cry about you’

‘Sometimes I wanna wrap my coat around you

Sometimes I wanna keep you warm

Sometimes I wanna wrap my coat around you’

This is the heart of the song

As the strings rise and swell

No request or complaint

No bid for reassurance or even connection

Wanting just to keep warm his beloved

To humbly protect, to shelter

A bulwark from the elements

A shepherd, a beacon, a lighthouse

Warm love with nowhere to go

A familial and timeless love

Bonded and gracious

And it doesn’t fade

It reveals itself as other layers fall away

Mapping feels more accurate at times. Instead of writing something that exists inside of me, I experience it more like discovering a phenomenon. Mapping that can take days or weeks of intermittent study and discussions.

A big part of my style of writing is noticing things. Dismantling movies and songs, messages, social movements, and propaganda. Scrutinizing. Not always judgmentally or critically either. Getting under the surface of a song, a movie or an idea seems to be the main thrust. From there one can use it as a way to see the culture, the nation, the individual. All roads lead to Rome.

Lately, words and their manifold meanings interest me. I sense, more specifically, how certain words get co-opted by: religions, movements, institutions, political parties, musical genres etc. It’s not necessarily good or bad, but it’s constant, this drift in meaning.

We must be aware of the ways in which our words are used. Often we get into debates because two people mean two different things when discussing something. Someone gets offended by the connotation they assume the person meant.

Words are so often insufficient. The map is not the territory. We struggle to describe what we see, feel, experience and truly mean. Futile attempts to connect through words can be maddening and destructive.

As I’m pre-writing for a half dozen essays, I see how important words have been co-opted by the aforementioned institutions. I don’t mean to pick on religion, but some of the most obvious and clear cases, for me, come from a very Chrisitanized view of specific words. Most of these words are virtues, like faith.

In Christianity, faith means to believe without proof. To believe in one’s salvation. To believe that Jesus died for your sins. Since we are a nation with such a large population of Christians, we have loosely adopted many of the suppositions, traditions and mindsets of our dominant religion--for better or worse.

And yet, a non-religious view of faith is still applicable and useful as a counter point. That faith is a different animal, though related. We can have trust in others, in their innate goodness. We can have a good-faith discussion. In this case, faith is honoring the rules of intellectual honesty.

In an upcoming movie review, I noticed how a character used faith that his actions would be worthwhile because people matter. In that realization, I noticed how I had previously and unconsciously taken on the religious meaning of the word—the specific promises and theology of Christianity.

When I examined that idea, I noticed that this belief system creates an external locus of control. Have faith that God will do this act or that God has done that act which saves you. This amounts to faith in something or someone external. An atheist scholar may go on to argue that said religion instills learned helplessness by causing its adherents to seek outside of themselves for said salvation.

But in the movie, the character acted in a way that proved he had faith in humanity, in the value of life. Not because of a god, but because he viewed life as sacred. As a result, he acted instead of waiting for God to do so. He decided life was sacred.

Sacredness is another word whose meaning can be blended. Is someone or something special because they are anointed by god? Or is sacredness a concept that we need to reconsider. Perhaps everything is sacred. Perhaps what’s missing from our culture, our nation and our planet, is a sense of universal sacredness.

Not because a scripture tells us so. But because we decide that it is so. Not this holy object or this ancient site. Not this chosen people. But everyone and everything. We can take back sacredness from its narrow usage just like we can with faith. Not because those usages are wrong, but because they are not universal.

Perhaps we unwittingly end up using our religions and our words and our laws to maintain classes of people. Citizens and illegals. Jews and Gentiles. Chosen ones and Philistines. Sacred land and brown sites. We pick and choose who and what is sacred by fiat or by doctrine. Even our religions are just for those who believe, who have faith. Others are not saved.

Even our sacred words are used to divide and thus conquer.

How does this happen? I don’t have the foggiest notion.

But I know there’s a name for it.

The mind virus—wetiko. The Spell. It settles upon our nation as we speak. Infiltrating our every thought. It divides. It feeds. It poisons us against one another. It is insatiable greed crossed with fear. It hates. It sees only enemies. It steals our words and inverts our nation’s principles and our world’s well-meaning religions.

I don’t know how to defeat it, but I think continually naming it is a start. We may never defeat the mind virus itself, but we might as well marshal our forces to defeat its avatar. That avatar has the keys to the soon-to-be kingdom on this 250th anniversary of the independence of our nation.

We must look around and see only sacredness. It is the antidote to the cynicism of abject greed and deception.

But we also must defeat those forces that would usurp and chain us all to a future of totalitarianism. That threat is all too real. They are trying to create a world where nothing is sacred.

All is raw material for creating more wealth for the few—grist for the mill.

Everyone is a means to that end.

Look in your hearts. Look to our institutions. But look at our words and see how even they can be used to subtly reinforce caste systems and dividing lines. We are balanced on a knife’s edge. Every choice matters.

Break the spell of wetiko by seeing everyone as not just a means to your ends, but an end in and of themselves. They are theirs just as you are yours.

This is the core of what it means to be civilized. To choose not to trespass, even when no one is watching. Even when you have been harmed. Even when you could easily rationalize it.

She sings with a sweet, well-trained voice. Her musical career has spanned 5 decades. With dozens of hits, not all of her songs are deep and meaningful, but she’s a good songwriter. Live to Tell is haunting. A handful of others stick out in my head. She deserves her acclaim.

I would hear snippets of Take A Bow in a store when walking by, but never knew what I was hearing—just echoes of that memorable and catchy chorus. I sensed sweetness—something bare and dreamy, with a touch of melancholy.

Then I listened to the song in earnest and found it wondrous, sublime and complex. This offering was deeper than the typical Madonna fare--less performative and extroverted. Her writing was subtle: using the metaphor of a stage and performance to gently tell her story of heartbreak.

The title implies artifice on the part of her lover, yet she delivers no invective. She doesn’t scorn his limitations. She merely shares a sweet and sorrowful melody. Her heart stays open. Her disappointment does not stain her love, her truth.

She merely asks, ‘you took my love for granted, why, oh why?’

The show is over, say goodbye.

In her unabashed vulnerability, she embodies the fool archetype. The innocence, the willingness, and the risk.

So many of her songs speak from a strong individualistic perspective, from feminism and empowerment. But this offering reveals the pain of losing, of the other getting the best of us. In doing so, she reveals her soft underbelly.

If Madonna was singing to women across the world that they can be strong and empowered, maybe she’s saying that there is power in vulnerability.

That the price of living a full life is performing our high wire act without a net.

That strong people sometimes lose in love.

And that no one is beyond confusion. No one is infallible.

To constantly suspect others and defend against the vagaries of loss means to forego the rewards that love offers us.

Perhaps our internal terrain is revealed in the wreckage of a connection that meant so much to us. We can take heart that even when we suffer tremendous loss, we don’t have one default setting. We don’t flatten the experience into seeing red, blaming supposed enemies. Static B-movie plot lines—villains and damsels in distress. We just feel bewilderment and a soft ache for those who couldn’t sustain the exposure of union.

‘I’ve always been in love with you’ is the heart’s proclamation--innocent and bold. It yearns but does not beg. Her love is a verdant and timeless river. It does not succumb and collapse into bitterness. Her love abides. It stands impervious to the choices of the other.

As I explore this song’s meaning and contours, I wonder if Madonna is expressing something more nuanced than mere unrequited love. Perhaps the love was just as real for the other person, but they chose to turn it off, to move on anyway. The show is over. But perhaps she discovered that she could not, that her love wasn’t mutable, fungible. Maybe what she means by ‘I’ve always been in love with you’ is that she discovered this love, this precious and living artifact in a deep cavern in her heart, waiting there since time immemorial to be discovered. Perhaps these treasures don’t expire. Maybe they don’t die. They just are. They radiate from our depths and from a timeless place. When someone can or will no longer meet us in that place, the artifact—the love, remains. It doesn’t obey the other lover’s exit.

The heartbreak is not only that the lover may have been acting. It is that he can apparently step out of the role, leave the stage, and call the whole thing finished. She cannot. For her, the love is not a scene with a beginning and an end. It is something discovered and habituated to.

Love doesn’t always wither when someone withdraws. It can fill so much heart-space that we can wonder how to move forward. Perhaps instead of trying to put out the flame or turn down the intensity, we might just grow around it. Get bigger. Build a bridge. Increase our capacity to hold love.

No need to shame ourselves or accept impatient cultural messages. Instead we can recognize that this person showed us just how much love we can contain and channel. We may struggle to bear its intensity. We may continue to speak its lines, even after the curtain falls, the lights go down and the set is broken down. Because for us, the play was real. The stage that housed it was temporary.

I was in the middle of watching the original Star Wars trilogy. They’re great movies and still, they’re super campy. There’s so much to say about them, but I wasn’t so much watching them as a film critic but letting myself get lost in the story after a long absence. Somehow I couldn’t help but enjoy the craft and make some observations.

A New Hope was a slow and methodical exercise in world-building. With fun, memorable characters, we felt the water warm as Lucas gradually wove mystery and intrigue into the beginnings of a hero’s journey with real stakes.

The sequel, The Empire Strikes Back was just so bleak--such a dark and effective movie. By the end, our heroes were reeling and wounded--splintered and near defeat. All seemed lost. Yet that’s where character development happens. They and we are at once galvanized in the forge of loss and doubt. These static characters become dynamic before our eyes. Damsels show ingenuity. Lunks soften. Boys become...well, larger boys, but with really cool gizmos and improved parlor tricks. Cowardly droids sometimes even save the day. There’s definitely some Wizard of Oz factor in Star Wars.

And just like that journey down the yellow brick road, we grow with our stand-ins as they mirror our foibles and strengths back to us in technicolor. These movies are about courage and self-discovery, daring-do and grit.

In turning those very tables we see how luck and commitment and belief conspire to level the odds against seemingly insurmountable forces. At the end of Return of the Jedi, the archetypal good vs evil face-off reaches its zenith with rich complexity.

I felt riveted once again as I saw the depth and nuance of this interaction. The Emperor, the epitome of evil and avatar for the dark side, had seduced Darth Vader and now was trying to ensnare his son, Luke. (spoiler alert!)

This changed the dynamic, because Luke kept appealing to his father’s humanity. Everyone kept telling him that his father was gone, that the machine and the dark side of the force had long since dispatched him. But Luke believed differently.

As a result of his inner knowing, Luke had abandoned the idea of defeating Darth Vader and had come instead on a rescue mission. A mission of mercy. By throwing down his weapon, he opened himself to attack by the Emperor. This allowed the humanity within his father to overcome the programming, the hatred and the false identity he had worn for years. His love for his son caused him to risk his life and destroy his teacher, his false spiritual father--to reclaim his humanity and to change his destiny.

Luke’s belief, his mercy and his steadfastness made him invulnerable to the urgings of the dark side. And this allowed his father’s inherent mercy to overpower his dominant false self. Love finds a way.

Maybe there’s more to mercy than I thought. Perhaps sometimes mercy means sensing the humanity hidden deep within another, and letting that impulse dictate the agenda. Maybe mercy is just another face of love. And if I love them, then I’ll do whatever serves them. I’ll fight for them. Not for me. Not to win, not to defeat, but to preserve and honor them. To set them free. To believe in them. To see them, to see past their armor and their programming. To completely relinquish agendas that control and steer and self-seek.

I thought mercy meant not killing a feeble enemy or not punishing the guilty. But I see it now as a form of surrender. A means by which the ego’s gambit is relinquished and the higher self can reassert: with the goals of healing, seeing past the mask and seeing the other with the eyes of love.

Mercy says I’m not the judge and jury. I do not see all. It is not for me to be the (self-appointed) agent of your karma, but of mine.

I see now that Luke didn’t ‘save’ his father in Return of the Jedi. Instead of salvation, Luke did ‘the work.’ He did the inner shadow work. He trained. He discovered himself. He gained proficiency, spiritually and otherwise. He was humbled and received tutelage from an elder. The hard work of individuation.

His first attempt to help his friends and fight his enemy ended with him losing a hand and barely surviving the fight. He was defeated because he tried to fight force with force and not with power. Darth Vader was his father, but, until that moment, he was unaware of this fact. That’s when everything changed.

Because he could then humanize this formerly faceless, anonymous villain, this caricature of evil. Vader was no longer a nemesis to be defeated, but a person with reasons and faults and a story. A person who could be redeemed. A dynamic character with agency, not a mere puppet, under the spell of the dark side.

That’s when the careful craftsmanship of storytelling pays off. When static characters become dynamic. When we see ourselves in our fathers and our lovers and everyone in between. And we realize our fight is not with the spellbound, but with the spell.

Luke threw down his weapon because the battle between good and evil was a trap. A false choice. Love doesn’t battle. Luke didn’t save his father. He showed him another way. He released his anger and fear as one impelled by love does not fight fire with fire. This freed him from the grip of the dark side. His father then merely modeled the same behavior. Because there was finally something worth living for and dying for—his son. The stakes offered him redemption.

Luke’s non-violence showed Vader that he did care and he acted according to his true nature, not the second nature that had come to dominate him. Then fittingly, he removed the mask that both kept him alive and enslaved.

Someone reminded me years ago that we can hold multiple ideas in mind without having to concretize our stance.

In Return of the Jedi, Luke, considering his path and his previous battle with his father, was a perfect example. He saw/believed/hoped/manifested that his father was still in there, under all the armor, the indoctrination and the sunk cost. He wasn’t Darth Vader or Anakin Skywalker; he was both.

Both things can be true. Both/and instead of either/or. Every situation does not reduce down to a 2-dimensional light switch, a black and white binary. One must recognize that sometimes, multiple choice is an option, even when given a true/false question.

That’s what Luke did. He changed the rules. And he won.

What’s different about our lives? Besides the lack of light sabers and adorable Ewoks? We don’t always have the opportunity to show off our insights and sublime understandings in a grand showdown between us, the valiant hero, and the forces of darkness. Yet, it doesn’t mean we don’t see.

Sometimes there’s just no grand gesture, no riveting climactic scene. Nothing to do and no one to save. We may not even have anyone to articulate our truth to. It just sits there, seeing the truth, the reality of a situation. We can wish or hope for a moment when we can act upon it. But until then, we can rest in the knowledge that we know this truth--this secret. That we can see past the masks and window dressings. This sense can offer solace when we realize we’re only the director of our movie. And some greater director has plans that don’t fully correspond to our wishes.

We commonly talk about love being a verb and it’s so apt, usually.

Maybe sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s a realization that we’re right about something, but it’s just for us to know. And maybe that’s enough. Because to see the truth means not being fooled by the circumstances, but not needing the world to conform to your preferences. And perhaps that’s where Mercy can guide us again. The same Mercy that helped Luke humanize his father may help us see that it’s merciful to let others be. No fixing or saving. Just seeing and knowing.

We don’t need an external triumph where we receive and offer redemption. Luke gets a great payoff. The characters save the day and live happily ever after. But life is not a movie. Those moments of high drama are the exception, not the rule. Yes! Seize them and act valiantly when life affords the chance. By all means, be the hero in your life. But we must learn what to do when we never get the chance to say our mic drop line. When the passion play can only take place internally. When our internal discovery of Mercy is the reward and the payoff.

A year or so ago, when in mourning, I was focusing on the song Graceland again. The line, ‘losing love is like a window in your heart’ gave me pause. I liked the simile, and yet it was the revelation and the commonality that Simon imparted through his rendering that was and is most operant. He was reaching for truth and we were along for the ride.

‘She comes back to tell me she’s gone. As if I didn’t know that. As if I didn’t know my own bed. As if I never noticed, the way she brushed her hair from her forehead.’

We revel in his use of lyric and music, feelings and unvarnished scenes, to get to the real. To help us slip into ourselves and under our defenses. To embody our most tender inner being, to feel seen. We discover commonality there with the writer and all who choose to withstand and soften through life’s vagaries.

And yet music and art don’t automatically shed light. We can watch a film that propagandizes and distorts. We may read misleading pseudo-history and come to wildly inaccurate conclusions. We too often believe false narratives about pivotal scenes in history and the actors who played upon the world stage. Through art and speech, sound and image, we can be taught or tricked, aroused or sickened, ginned up for war or mollified.

Our capacity to perceive is fallible. See death cults and abusive relationships for context. We can reject the trustworthy and embrace the charlatan. We don’t know what we don’t know. So humbly seeking truth via education is a choice to accept our functional incapacity to learn, to perceive clearly without the intervention of not only experts in a subject but teachers—exemplars of discernment—those who dare us to think, to examine, to wrestle with truth. They challenge our assumptions and show us the stakes.

We must be willing to see the chinks in our perceptual armor, the fizzures where deceptive arguments seep in to court our core wounds. How the algorithm cases the joint. It sizes us up and glamours our prideful egos, luring us to court deception, mapping where we harbor half-truths and false beliefs, where we entertain fallacies that are at once tantalizing and life-threatening. Extinction event catalysts in sheep’s clothing.

So in the school of life, all art is not created equal. Some works free us and others serve us a 1-dimensional script for who we are and will be. Media can feed us generalized narratives about our identity that too many seemingly lap up and wear with pride. I see this most egregiously in radio country music. I have always found it mindless and deeply insulting. Easy tropes about tractors and trucks and other facile identity cues make me shudder. It feels like a Kincaid painting but with barbs—with consequences that would become all too clear as politics shifted and metastasized in the only nation I’ve called home.

I sensed that country music was selling its listeners a soft propaganda—a ready-made script. A hokey caricature of patriotism, regionalism, masculinity, rural life vs city life, American-ness that you can slip into and skip all that useless introspection. No nuance, no search, no layers. Here it is. Plop. Eat your gruel. Whatever I see on the surface is what everything means. No inquiry, no risk and of course, no doubt. No time for nuance and no need to veer into the uncomfortable, the messy or the taboo. No stark encounter with self and shadow. No subtle urging to face our biases, to humanize those different than us. It seems innocuous, but it’s not.

Radio country brainwashes and dumbs-down vast swathes of our population with results that have become all-too apparent in the last 10 years. My disappointment is not that there is such a Nashville machine that churns out fluff for profit—that makes mindless grist and calls it music. Capitalism is like that. I’m incensed that so many consume such tripe so willingly. They wear it like a badge of honor. Coupled with dogmatic religions that asks people to have faith in unseen saviors, too many have become the unwitting pawns of those who would usurp—the highwaymen who would gladly separate us from our sovereignty. These engineers of chaos, of the demise of our American Experiment. The stakes could not be higher.

And yet all is not lost. Our capacity to course-correct may be our saving grace. Our willingness to see past the surface is needed now more than ever. Cynical times led by cynical politicians leads to cynical citizens. We are starting to resemble our counterparts in Russia and other non-free nations. They are wise to the propaganda. They vote and yet they know that this vote is a charade. They are initiated in public deception. We must become so and yet not lose our sense of people power.

We do this by examining, by employing awareness, by seeking understanding. By measuring our capacity for discernment with humility. We must listen to our guts, but assess the conclusions we would jump to with scrutiny. The appreciation of art is part and parcel of the embodiment of discernment. Art presents us information in a fashion that deeply soothes and harshly confronts. It blurs lines and breaks rules as it contorts and swirls and toys with the permutations of meaning. It seeks to meld the ethereal with the mundane, the vulgate and the sacred. Art dissects and scrutinizes. It magnifies what it encounters. It passes judgment and redeems.

Art demands and rewards presence: something that is often in short supply. Humility and beginner’s mind go a long way in our vigilance against misinfortion and disinformation. Let’s investigate the seemingly innocuous streams of entertainment that we digest, for they could be our custom-tailored and bespoke Trojan Horse. True art does not lull us to sleep. It does not typecast. It does not generalize. It beckons: awaken and experience your humanity and alchemize your suffering through rhythm and integrated chaos, not mere spectacle. Witness yourself through the mirror that art and nature provide. Come back to center. Metabolize the detritus. Venture out once more and see the world anew.

Spirit ushered me captive into those bitter mornings via such songs to soothe and broach that unwelcome reality in my preferred language and medium–these artist’s homages to those they knew they must release but couldn’t bear to do so. In those early days, dawn would arrive with a jolt–a caustic reckoning with the stubborn truth my mind could not fathom and my soul would not accept.

Bobby Jean, aka Steve Van Zandt, soon returned to the band, but our lovers often don’t. We find our way eventually, despite the loss, or because of it. Or maybe we don’t.

Perhaps these songs aren’t mere entreaties to loves lost, but are woven to serve a deeper purpose. Lately, Billy Idol’s Sweet Sixteen haunts me. A lament to his girlfriend while on tour, this song’s title invoked the story of Coral Castle and its creator, Edward Leedskalnin. He moved to Florida and built this impossible stone monument to his love, his sweet sixteen, who would not marry him and who never came to see his otherworldly creation. Yet thousands of visitors grace his halls every year and honor his testament to love.

Perhaps grand gestures like his are more than meets the eye. Maybe they’re not just for the love object. What if they are the hard labor of one’s soul excavation? Toiling in vain, these bittersweet monuments to those we couldn’t have—to unbridled love with nowhere to go. Channeled revelations, discharges of divine spark, harnessed with ghostly reverence. Pleading and shedding. Forswearing and exhausted relenting.

The nihilist in us can discount these odes to passion as empty melodramatic charades cast against a cruel and soulless abyss. What apparent folly, what hapless futility. Yet, perhaps love finds a way around the stumbling blocks. Yes, Pattie Boyd didn’t come back to Eric Clapton and Stills chased Judy Collins to no avail. But these titanic homages stand regardless as each artist’s respective magnum opus. Layla and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes preside atop rock and roll’s pantheon of lost love offerings—the blinding zenith of both artist’s towering creative capacities. They aren’t mere masterworks to be viewed in some gallery, lauded for their technique and tidy brushstrokes.

These open letters reached me. They engulfed and riveted me before I had tasted agony, before I had lost love, before my soul had been torn down. They lit up my circuits with an intensity and aliveness that forewarned and celebrated life’s impending tragedies and deep joys.

With each acrid gulp of loss and longing, they met me with understanding and permission to mourn and plead. To implode, to grasp and clutch. To need. They met me with grace and honor. With rage and confusion that accompanied me in the devastation. With the sense that I might trudge through my sacred wreckage in the windswept footfalls of these weary troubadours. By metabolizing my pain like they had recontextualized theirs: through creating art. Because there were no better options.

No wonder we revere our singers and writers and rock stars. They channel their pain into medicine for the listless listener. They lead by example. Risking everything to share their deepest secrets in hopes that they might be accepted, seen and loved for their flaws and frailties. In their smallness. This offers the listener permission to be small and sad and hurting. In return they humbly ask to be seen: naked before the world. They let us in.

Neither the singer nor the listener is above the other. The artist is not a god on a pedestal. The fan is not a supplicant in the cheap seats. Both are humans in pain, reaching across the void for meaning and love. And they each oblige.

Both are no longer alone. Love finds its way. Thus an inextricable bond is forged between these long distance lovers. The fans offer the artist the love he or she needs. The singer’s art heals the listener and makes them feel vested and linked to the pain of their heroes. We realize the venerated star is just like you and me: a simple human. We can heal through their words and sameness. But greater still, the artist shows the fan that true healing comes when we choose risk and metabolize our inner struggles. To consume art is fantastic. To create it, to reveal oneself, to offer this magic to the world: that is transcendence.

In a time where there is so little cultural cohesion, the musician serves as bard—as shaman to a weary and rudderless populace. This is not mere entertainment or distraction. That’s the surface, the trance. A circuit is created to heal all parties, to link them with love and solace. Appreciation and adoration. Each reveals their wounds. Catching the other as they fall.

Love Finds A Way.

Epilogue:

After 3 years of intense struggle and 1 year of the deepest mourning, life is starting to make sense again, thanks to friends, family, and the catharsis of receiving and creating art. I didn’t believe I’d ever feel alive again. The worst storm of my life has dissipated on all fronts. Never had I experienced such loss and despair–especially while so hamstrung by complex circumstances. Music and art purged what I could no longer carry. Such a transformation is uncanny to experience. It’s a process. Thankfully, I had my own vehicle—my writing, to help me process the losses and revelations. This helped me sidestep learned helplessness. If my writing does anything to you, let it be to coax you into your own introspection and creation. The world is waiting for your medicine, and so are you.

My favorite number, the ethereal Today, occupies rare air because it behaves in contrast to our expectations of standard love-song fare. In lieu of glowingly describing his lover, he regales us with his overflowing love, his burgeoning reverence.

We know little of her, save the grandiose state she inspires. Not her perfume nor the shape of her eyes. Because he’s chosen instead to narrate the primeval force that subsumes him. His soul has become love’s vessel. Yet his is no parasitic possession, no mere infatuation—but an inner saturation, heralding the august arrival of the overman.

The song is a procession. As verses advance and pervade, the harmonic intensity grows—rippling, stirring, and swelling at the transcendent unity of his love experience.

As a listener and a lover, digesting such a song inspires similar states. Through these offerings, we acknowledge love’s embodiment. We relish the splendor of our love stores which the song captures and colors and translates. The towering adoration it reveals and reawakens: our majestic capacity to see and want and choose. We savor and project this affinity to the other, even in absentia.

There exists no feeling more certain or more rare. When reciprocated, the joy is boundless. Yet even as I awoke in the absence of she who I adored, my love radiated so pure, so humble and so alive. It would conquer any obstacle. No circumstance could deny this love’s veracity.

I stared back ensconced as she revealed with unguarded eyes and hushed sobs her innermost secrets. They kissed my heart and rang bells in my mind, these words lost on pages wet with tears. But the movie didn’t end that way.

Yet when I laid down worry and fear and the deep sense of loss, this unyielding Love was all that remained of me. An open letter, a promise, a message in a bottle, bobbing and floating up to eternity.

He’s a survivor, a warrior, but not a 1-dimensional cliche. He’s a reluctant messiah and an enigma who finds his own way to heroism when it counts.

In the pivotal scene, the villain began describing his treacherous plan: how Logan’s girlfriend’s death was faked, and how she was in on the ruse. And how their relationship was never real.

Logan didn’t flinch. He replied, ‘It Was Real for Me.’ I paused and let the moment sink in. I had seen the movie 5 times but I never caught that meaning, that scene, and that sureness. There’s exposition that would put you, the reader, there—the stakes, the nuance and the layers. But it doesn’t matter, really.

What matters is that Logan honored this moment and this love any way. By doing so, he served as a stand-in for us, for what we can be when we look inward for guidance. He had all the tools to be a mercenary—cold, calculated, impenetrable and stoic. But he chose vulnerability and risked everything to love any way. In so doing, he inverts and controverts all the bogus themes of men (and people) protecting themselves instead of opening to life and seeing love as a zero-sum-game.

A pitched battle between seemingly natural adversaries, vying for control. A chess match but with real stakes. A sad and unnecessary zeitgeist that decimates our culture and civilization.

Logan didn’t need to win. He needed to be authentic. He knew that we gain nothing when we risk nothing. He knew that vulnerability was real strength, despite what the culture hawks on social media. Despite what everyone was doing around him. Despite the pain and disillusionment of betrayal and loss. He didn’t let these events make him cynical.

When he loved, it was real, even if the other person couldn’t meet him there. Even if he looked like a fool. Because it was real for him. Because he was real. His love was real. Because vulnerability is not weakness, it’s the opposite. It’s strength. We risk pain and loss in the quest to meet the other in the hallowed space of intimacy.

Our culture wants to sell us fantasies of control, stoicism and power moves. But Logan was at peace with being fooled. Because always operating from a position of advantage means never risking and never truly living. Only when we risk loss, failure, and blame, do we live.

As manly as Logan looks and often acts in these movies, it’s his sensitivity in this scene that makes him Logan and not some caricature of manliness from some collective fever-dream. He has a heart and it can be broken. Otherwise, it’s not a heart, but a wall that isolates and stagnates our energy.

Love is not a game. It’s not a competition. Love asks us to strip off our armor, to lay down our weapons. To soften and to view the other with the eyes of empathy. To humanize and forgive the limitations of our partners. Love is not at war. Even when we lose.

The story centers around a powerful and evil magic ring that had been recently rediscovered. Thus, a noble quest to destroy it ensued. By doing so, the heroes aimed to save the world from the resurrection of the movie’s villain, the evil god, Sauron.

The ring’s discoverer, Gollum was a kindly character who became increasingly possessed by the One Ring—both for its powers when in its possession, and for its allure when he lost it. His was a descent into madness.

As the group began its quest, individuals rightly asked, ‘what is he doing here?’ But the ring didn’t just whisper to Gollum. It pulled at each character’s motivating narratives, promising to empower their righteous goals. Such is the nature of the ego’s insinuations. The ring sought to bring down all the members of the quest by overpowering their ethics and supplying them with rationalizations meant to bridge the chasm between right and wrong.

At the quest’s apex, as Gollum, Sam and Frodo were all that remained of the group, Sam would constantly lobby Frodo to cut Gollum out of the plan. Yet the viewer remembers when a wise wizard character hadpreviously warned that this wretch may yet have a purpose in the battle between good and evil.

Similarly, we can wonder what use the universe has with our pernicious and destructive parts.

As I look back on a recent personal quest, I see many parallels. I lurched through my quest—single-minded-of-purpose, much like Gollum. I sought the one thing that I believed would make me feel strong, seen, safe, and loved. A life that seemed to offer a deep meaning—like I was part of something bigger. I was trying to reclaim something external I believed I had lost. And yet, Sam and Frodo weren’t trying to find the ring, they were trying to destroy it. Notice the cross-purposes. This same tension can animate our personal lives in key moments that are rich with real stakes and rife with opportunities to fail.

Our lower self seeks to control, to manage, to grasp and clutch. He works alone. He refuses or distorts spiritual energy and information. He only sees fear and lack, villains and competitors. Every game is zero sum: you win, I lose. He is clenched. And he often argues for short-term ethical lapses in order to promise greener pastures, to co-opt our valid long-term goals.

Yet, much like Frodo and Sam, we have another facet, a higher self that is on a different quest: one borne of promise, expansion, acceptance—of love and trust. The higher self recognizes and eschews the pull of desire, the drugification of pleasure, and the deep and powerful grip that fear and loss can exert.

One entity wants to destroy the ring and liberate the soul. The other seeks to possess the very poison that conspires to imprison the soul. Both characters think they’re right. And in a sense, they are.

When it came time to release the ring into the molten lava, Frodo could not relinquish his grip. What he had once possessed now possessed him. The ring had finally overpowered him. And that’s when Gollum, possessed of his own craven desire, lurched at the ring and knocked it and himself into the flames, destroying the ring and saving the world, however inadvertently.

As I look back on my quest, I sheepishly note my grasping and clutching. And yet, these attributes somehow served the higher self’s purpose, despite their intentions. By reaching for my ring, I destroyed it. I lessened its death grip on me. No more could I tarry with this fulsome fantasy of external completion. I had been surreptitiously served a summons to my decades-delayed individuation—stamped: attendance mandatory.

Somehow, events played out where the goals of the higher self were served by the typical small-self folly: trying to control everything and everyone. And just like in The Lord of the Rings, the ego at its worst saved the day.

I shudder to think what would have become of me had I gotten what I wanted. So lost was I in the ego’s projections. So narrow was my focus.

Even days later, the ego had concocted a scheme to stealthily override the test results, to veto the ruling handed down by the high court. I could have easily rationalized it too. It took all the power I had to relinquish this idea. Yet, as I did, a fog lifted. A deep ache in my solar plexus subsided immediately.

I had found myself at the Crossroads of Power and Force. I only barely chose power at the urging of my intuition. My conscience won out, but only because every alarm was blaring at full volume. And only because the truth had been made plain to me days before. Each test we encounter is an ethical test. Ethics are the currency of spiritual ascendance.

Sometimes we may need to subdue the ego or to co-create with the ego. On other occasions, the higher self sees the folly of a situation and thus lets the ego clutch at and lose the very entity it so deeply desires. Not to merely prevent self-immolation, but to manifest an unseen and higher aim.

Because it knows better. Witness the elegant efficiency of a higher perspective. Wrapped up in every situation is the key to freedom or bondage. Each choice promises either rejuvenation or retrenchment. There is no neutral option. Time’s a-wastin’ and the stakes are higher than they seem.

Yet we must credit ourselves—and even our egos—where and when it’s due. I passed this test and others recently. Sometimes such acknowledgements can feel like faint praise when experiencing deep loss. And yet the soul implications can be staggering, despite the lack of fanfare. The ego seeks constant validation, applause and awards. The higher self has no need to accumulate such trinkets because its nature is timeless.

Since I passed this test, I wonder at the where-and-when of the next test. What are the spoils of such victories? Perhaps an increased sense of stability, integrity and peace. Perhaps a watching universe offers subtle opportunities to build on this momentum. It may quietly beckon us to join a quest where we impart wisdom and discernment, to show a way through these battlefields of the mind so that others may be emboldened. We can be our own medicine. To demonstrate this for others can empower them to take heart and join their quests anew.

—Please consider being a paid subscriber to assist me on my quest to share my story, my insights and my truth.

I posted some months back about the choices we face in life in a post entitled:

We can distill these options, these stances, down into Love or Fear, Power or Force. I was discussing the many similarities between two seminal books in my library: Power VS Force and Love is Letting Go of Fear. I need to re-read these books constantly because I so easily get swayed by my fear thoughts, my attempts at control, and the folly that these states can create.

It was in this vein that I’ve been considering the personal and political implications of trying to use both power and force to get results. Sometimes it may be force masquerading as power. Perhaps we delude ourselves and others into thinking we are operating from power, from love and from assuredness, when the foundation is built on fear. When the actions are gentle in form but fearful and forceful at their core. When their design is to prevent fear’s prognostications from coming true. When we don’t know what we’ll do if it doesn’t work out.

This brings to mind my favorite heroic movies and myths. We see ourselves in our heroes as they face tribulation and search for meaning, purpose and victory over the forces of chaos and destruction. We want to take bold actions in service of our goals. And yet, the hero’s journey is as much about the character development that proceeds the grand finale as the event itself. Sometimes the hero loses and gets a bitter dose of unrequested character development.

Time after time, these heroes are asked to choose: self-service or surrender? Will they be consumed by anger, resentment and helplessness or allow themselves to empty such emotions from their container so as to be a hollow vessel for spiritual power.

So when we wonder what to do next, we need to read between the lines. I know I can become myopic: single-minded-of-purpose. I see only achieving the goal before me. But I want us to adjust the perspective lens to glean more information and perhaps, see the deeper goals that are possible. Goals that may make the spoils of the specific quest seem inconsequential or at least transient.

When pondering a specific quest today, I realized that at some level, I was being tested. Perhaps we always are. The way I behave and what I emanate are my legacy. Just watch the movie Cloud Atlas. This movie helped me consider the possibility that our actions and choices do matter, even if they may seem futile in the moment. Courage is rewarded. We rise and fall with our ethics. Our lives are full of seminal moments, battles between the forces of good and evil, within and without. Every step is a new crossroads.

We can be haunted by regrets or choose our release from bondage by our willingness to be brave, bold, and kind when no one is looking. Or we can let fear guide us into grasping, clutching at what we see as ours in a world that we merely borrow for a time. A small voice is often speaking, asking, beckoning. Will we honor what we know to be right at our core? Or will we rationalize its suppression via the ego’s machinations?

This leads to the aforementioned unholy alchemy. We may find ourselves at a station where we are being asked to relinquish that which we most cherish in order to fully become that which we could embody. It feels like a fool’s bargain. We finally see the prize. We may not have believed it was possible. And yet we are asked to hand it right back in service of spiritual purification. Our mettle is being tested. The ego’s last stand.

Power or Force. Love or Fear. It really does come down to a binary sometimes. I want to pass the test this time. And perhaps, like in certain tales, we may inevitably receive that which we relinquish. Surrender is the final test.

Let’s be careful to realize that we can choose power and love in big moments but unconsciously toggle between love and fear, power and force, in a way that creates a defacto blending of these vastly different motivations. We’re human. Fear can keep us alive. We worry, we consume media, and we interact with other fallible humans. I think we need to take the time to consider our motivations. We need to consider what the outcomes may be if we get what we want. We need to realize that to acquiesce due to bad timing or temporary misalignment is not giving up. It’s patience. We can employ faith and trust. Let’s be careful to root out the force, the rush, the impatience, the rationalizing. These are warning signs that we’ve entered the ego’s realm. The ego misleads and confounds with deft.

Good-hearted souls need not only fear domination from the Dark Side: becoming the enemy and falling down into the clutches of evil. We need to recognize the ways that darkness insinuates itself into and dilutes and spoils our legitimate goals and enterprises. The ways it cheapens and poisons our relationships. How businesses formerly aligned with quality, value, and concern for society and workers can become an abusive cabal of wealth extractors in a generation. They, like we, rise and fall due to our choices and their implications. Weed out the darkness from your enterprises of light. Do not let the unholy alchemy of power welded to force be the downfall of all you hold dear.

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But I argue that we dismiss the power and importance of the fool at our peril.

One can be a fool intellectually, buying into quaint notions of romanticism or stringent ethics. Fools often go against the grain, speaking up and out about government, business, when the mood of the society doesn’t reward such speech. A fool can be a culture’s bulwark against a slide into corruption or hedonism. Fools often see a problem coming before it manifests fully.

In a King’s Court in the Dark Ages in Europe, the fool was an important character. He provided entertainment for the court, often at his expense. Though he may have been tormented, he was granted the special privilege of challenging the King’s decrees and behaviors via his mockery. Since he was viewed as a simpleton, he was tacitly granted this quarter.

Mythologically and esoterically, the fool is an archetype with greater depth than our modern understanding would indicate. Often mentioned with the overlapping trickster archetype, the fool may help us see where we’ve been too serious, too certain, and too stuffy. The fool shows us where we have been blinded by our arrogance. When we reconnect with our humility and our purpose, we can look back in gratitude for our comeuppance.

The Fool is innocent, playful and childlike. Modern adults, often institutionalized by work, suppress these characteristics.

I have always wanted to write a treatise on this character and this short essay can’t do such an intriguing subject justice. My purpose today is to challenge my readers to reconsider the value and the meaning when a fool shows up in their day. Perhaps someone teases you, beguiles you. Maybe you feel like a fool for believing someone. We can chide ourselves for being a fool. We can believe in the ideals of our nation when others have capitulated to corruption. We can act with moral clarity when others are self-serving. We can honor our spiritual beliefs when challenging times come. We can feel fooled in love or friendship and feel exposed. Our instincts may be to shut down, to harden and to ‘Do as the Romans Do.’ But our foolishness is no curse. And to retreat from our child-like innocence means betraying our truth.

Perhaps greater discernment is in order, but being the fool means to try, to extend ourselves and to stay open. A fool believes and trusts and plays. A fool maintains his innocence while others choose cynicism and group think.

To be a called a fool in a culture that is sick and dying is an honor. A fool is steadfast and self-soothing. And often, a fool is doubted until his prognostications come true, and then he is lauded. If someone calls you a fool, thank them. Discernment means seeing ourselves and our true nature. Be willing to be wrong, to try and lose and to fail. This practice shows you who you are and what you want. This information is a blessing. The fool is here to help us individuate and rediscover ourselves: our meaning, our purpose, our essence and our value. The fool is the archetypal counterbalance to cynicism. Cynicism is the death of community, of spirituality, of trust, of faith and the social contract. Cynicism is a slow decline into soul-death. The fool is the antidote.

I was bewildered in the best way. I knew enough to immediately call both parents the morning after the first date to tell them I’d found the One. This was Not a pattern of mine. Such was the point of departure from my previous life.

I was enthralled from the first kiss and before. Everything after was a dreamy reverie of union and bliss. One night in the dark, as the moonlight shone through the blinds, I looked in her eyes and told her, our faces inches away, “I love you.” I couldn’t possibly hold it in anymore. And I’ve been in love before, but never like this. After 50 years of life, I recognized the auspiciousness and the rarity. My feet greeted the hallowed ground of this sacred space.

We were wide open and full of promise. I sensed her courage as she came to me and requited a few nights later, after a careful caucus with her guides. I felt her words waft their way to my ears as they glimmered and danced, lighting up my heart, sending little shocks of frisson through my body. Our souls were intertwined as if they had always been. I was absolutely certain this would never end. I had finally found her.

Months passed and we became each other’s person. So much joy and laughter, togetherness and union. And yet, our stage was set with chaos and intense, seismic transitions. Our lives were layered in crises when we met. I didn’t stop to think that those impediments could mar our celestial affiliation.

Then, in silence, the avalanche overtook us. A spell was cast and we were banished from the Garden. Everything stopped. The link was severed via bonesaw. We stopped sharing our lives and our days, our troubles and funny videos. No more walks and talks. No more. We just stopped one day.

I know all the reasons and yet I still don’t know why.

My love has deepened in absence, despite the shock and awe.

Maybe one day I’ll understand, in the sweet bye and bye.

I guess part of me got scared that I won’t remember these details after a while. They’ll just blur into a few peak memories. This caught me off-guard: that I’d even lose the memories. An intrusive thought, a message from within about the wrecking ball that tore down the dilapidated structures of my old urban core. The new skyline was just in the planning stage.

In another dimension, these special memories would reside in a consecrated space between these lovers: cherished as the magical, germinal moments that they were. In a photo album casually perused at a wedding reception, an anniversary party, and a funeral. But not for these two star-crossed lovers.

These two deeply sensitive souls

Perhaps too sensitive to bear the burdens and stay open and connected

Too calloused to trust one more time and for the first time

Too jaded to believe what they knew to be true

Unmet needs and complaints co-mingle and fester when left unspoken

Old wounds conspire and bedevil

Generational curses shackle the unsuspecting

Karma arrives with a thud

An ancient spell, bound and superheated in a cauldron of fate, bubbling over with consequence. All the injustices of our lives led to that promontory point. The detritus of lifetimes of sleepwalking, only to awaken to devastation. The dishonors absorbed and meted out. Our parents and our parents’ parents. Witness the totality of our ancestral lines: their losses, their heartaches and their toil. The weight of a thousand lifetimes, the yearning of a thousand souls. And yet there is the promise of the new.

I suppose the only antidote to such black magic is stronger magic. How does one lift a curse of such scope and scale? What does love ask of me in this moment? Maybe some day I’ll break that spell. Maybe those same ancestors will assist me and rejoice. Love finds a way.

Well I think we need to add force to the list. First, let me define my term. In this case, I mean when we push, cajole, demand, stay up all night and attempt to overpower a situation in order to get the desired result. When the shit is hitting the fan due to previous inaction.

This behavior can come up for multiple reasons. Consider someone who, under accumulated stress, freezes. He does nothing. He tends to avoid problems until they accrue. When the bills and deadlines come due, he springs into action. He forces outcomes and pushes others to comply in order to evade the undesirable natural consequences of his freezing, his typical trauma response.

So his forcing is needed and in response to his freezing. I wonder if we might just force things as a direct reaction to stressful situations. Others among us have learned how to force from family members. Whatever its genesis, forcing creates its own problems.

We aren’t at our best when we force. Others feel the strain. We can push so hard that we begin another cycle of burnout where we want to go freeze again. Our work is rushed and the results are usually poorer. Sometimes we must force things. But only because we are usually reacting to the last mess we’ve made responding to the trials of life.

I’m looking at my life with the intention of seeing where I have forced things and how that may have limited my results. How it may have pushed people away or blocked opportunities. But deeper, I wonder if forcing things shrouds our authentic self: our art, our true feelings, our talents.

Forcing is done in response to fear. Sometimes fear is a good guide, but its effects are hard to shake off. We can be consumed by fear if we are not careful to notice where and when it overstays its welcome. Noticing the urge to force outcomes might be a good litmus test, indicating we are once again under the spell of fear.

This happens again and again in our favorite movies, especially those centered on Joseph Campbell’s teachings on the Hero’s Journey. In Return of the Jedi, Luke went against Master Yoda’s protestations in order to leave and save his friends. He finally drew his guidance from within. He finally trusted himself, despite the fact that he didn’t finish his training. This is individuation. And this, like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters, was the only way for the hero and the rebellion to succeed. It was the only thing the character couldn’t do and yet the only choice that would save all he held dear.

In Richard Donner’s Superman from 1978, Superman found Lois dead in a car after an earthquake where he was too late to save her. His long-dead parents had sent along teachings about earth and how to make his way there. Chief among these rules was not meddling in the history and natural order on this new planet. But the hero chose differently. Enraged at her death, he chose love and risked his honor to do what his heart commanded. He turned back time to save his love.

Star Trek had a great concept called the Prime Directive. This overarching rule reminded Starfleet officers to not meddle in the affairs of the people and planets they encountered. But in the real situations where these explorers found themselves, they faced situations with no easy answers. When this directive was violated, the violator might be tried in a court marshal. Under extraordinary circumstances, these choices were excused. Maybe they chose to save lives of those who didn’t know the rules. Situational ethics can be tricky. But the basic theme is the same: sometimes we just know what we have to do and the rules don’t or can’t apply. Conventional wisdom doesn’t get the last word. We take the ultimate risks for what really matters. when events corner us into the clarity brought on by necessity and conviction. Sometimes we just know what we have to do.

So victory awaits beyond fear, beyond conformity. Self-assurance is a choice, a practice and often a threat to the sensibilities of internal voices and of those we esteem. Risk elicits fear, and yet these movies captivate us with moments where the stakes are so high that the characters must face their fears in order to protect and defend those in their charge. To do what must be done. So fear becomes the final gatekeeper to rites of passage that offer freedom, transcendence and power. Instead of viewing fear as a problem to be solved, we can see it as a compass, as a guide to the next stage of individuation. We can choose to not identify as the fear itself, but as the person experiencing it as a temporary condition or experience.

However we choose to address fear, we can use these movies to remind us that the answers are sometimes counter-intuitive. When our logic hits a wall we must dig deeper to find the answers. Perhaps fear is the messenger that one of these seminal moments approaches.

I had been asking for miracles in my life from the perspective of learned helplessness. Then I considered some of the situations where I was grateful for recent gifts. A common denominator was that I took a leap of faith and was rewarded in these situations. I was lonely so I asked for companionship. Soon after, I had the opportunity to adopt a senior cat. I gave her refuge and found myself accompanied by a sweet furry old lady cat. This was despite the financial concerns I had and the responsibility this added to my often hectic life. I had to be willing to see past the fear.

I found myself lamenting the loss of previous homes where I had transformed the properties into a lush jungle. So I took the time to start making cuttings and planting a few plants in areas that were barren in my new yard. Now I have a morning routine of caring for these plants and watching the wonders of nature as I walk barefoot through the rain-soaked lawn. This is just what I do. This is me being a Green Man. I don’t feel right until I establish this connection with the land.

In both situations I had to initiate. There are others too, but you get the picture. From work to health to relationships, we pay our dues to the universe and hope the universe meets us in the middle.

This realization has brought forth insights. The first is that I have to meet the universe in the middle when I beseech it for answers and relief and guidance. I have to try, to listen, to stop and be still, to sacrifice and to choose. I have to keep my side of the street clean and hope the universe recognizes my gesture and bestows upon me that which I need and seek. I have to do the work.

Similarly, I now require that others meet me in the middle if we are to create something together. I’ve been both the taker and the over-giver. Neither extreme feels right at a soul level. It may not be the exact middle either. It’s not about keeping score. We need to maintain a willingness to give, to humanize the other and to question our perception of events. The middle might be just one step past our comfort zone. All the victories, all the connections, businesses, activities, animals and memorable events I’ve experienced were because I tried. Because I stuck my neck out. Because I moved past fear. Because I wanted it more than I was afraid of looking silly.

This is how I discovered talents like writing and drumming. This is how I met lovers and discovered myself. How I found my passions and pastimes. How I made connections that mattered and lasted.

I don’t have all the answers. While I believe we can and should manifest what we want, sometimes the universe has other ideas. We must factor this into the equation. We may have a spark of divinity within us, but we still live in a mysterious world. We don’t know why we’re here or what comes next.

I am willing to meet the unfathomable halfway and see what happens.

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Most Star Wars fans remember Master Yoda beckoning to Luke: ‘Do or Do Not. There is No Try.’ This tough-love approach mirrors our classic American work ethic. We are taught that ‘trying is lying’ when we don’t live up to sales goals or get poor grades at school. We portray trying as an excuse and a failure. While I’m sure this motivates many, I wonder if we might reconsider our blanket rejection of trying.

The singer describes how her trying feels risky, and yet she moves past her comfort zone: perhaps for the first time. She is navigating old feelings, remorse and feeling stuck. This is a song about vulnerability and overwhelm, but also persistence. Perhaps trying is all we have. Maybe trying is trusting, letting in a little faith that things could be different this time.

Personal relationships are not sales quotas. Doctors can’t try to perform a surgery. They must succeed. But humans who seek a loving union must try. In such relationships, trying is succeeding.

Trying may take many forms in love relationships:

the willingness to trust again after being hurt

giving others the benefit of the doubt

leaving our comfort zone to risk rejection

communicating difficult feelings and expectations

forgiving transgressions

So as we look at our current and previous relationships, we can honor ourselves and our partners for the times where we and they were courageous and tried when so many voices inside protested.

When we put pattern recognition aside and trusted someone who looked and sounded like someone who hurt us

When we admitted we were acting small and didn’t know what to do about it

When we saw someone we loved give everything they had for us

When we accepted that someone we loved couldn’t try in a key moment

Trying is the point of departure. Trying is the gesture that says:

You’re worth the effort

You’re not a collection of your worst moments

I see how much you love me

I see your innocence and goodness

So when relationships end or fail, one or both parties have decided not to try anymore. Maybe their trying wasn’t being reciprocated. Maybe trying wasn’t enough. Perhaps the parties couldn’t align. Perhaps doubts or fears crept in. Old patterns and overwhelming life circumstances. Misunderstandings and unhealed ruptures. Bad timing.

A rueful insight that keeps coming to me:

Even when you have two kind souls with a sacred bond and loving intentions, there are so many pitfalls:

fear, lack of trust, misunderstanding, communication issues, external influences, and traumas.

No relationship is invincible. There’s no sure thing.

Another sad realization dawned on me:

In real ways, this was me trying for the first time in my life.

Nothing I have ever experienced approaches this level of pain and loss.

This is me trying to let go.

My therapist in high school mentioned a useful dichotomy and it stuck with me: Trait or State? I love how a term can illuminate and expand the depth of inquiry. He was asking me about my depression and related behaviors. Are these core traits, or are they choices brought on by temporal states of consciousness? I didn’t know. Perhaps the curiosity it invokes is more important than conclusions.

Another question arises: what are the long-term effects of these states? Do states ever make de facto traits? Or do we ever get fooled into thinking something is a trait because we’ve been in a state for so long as to render it second nature? These questions are beyond my pay-grade. Again, perhaps the state of curiosity can suffice.

I point out when I see an error in perception. I want to map it so that others may avoid the pitfall. I need to feel more understood and put a name to a face. I seek a sense of beginner’s mind in my readers and myself. I love sureness, but we are so often artificially sure because we skip steps in critical thinking. I want people to arrive at sureness via open-mindedness, objectivity and close scrutiny of their thought and feeling processes. We can convince ourselves of anything, especially with the help of others, social media, and our old wounds. What happens when we question everything we profess to believe?

I’ve presented this question as an error in judgment and perception. The error is assuming a person’s tendencies are ingrained and unchangeable. That assumption leaves out the conditions, what’s going on in their life. Can we contextualize the behaviors and believe that this person is capable of change?

If so, maybe we can come to believe that we are capable of change and growth. We can view our personalities and tendencies as fluid and mutable. And we can view others as dynamic instead of static. When we view others as static, we may be protecting ourselves from pain or from having to grow, change, or offer others a chance. We may protect ourselves from the vagaries of vulnerability, only to subject ourselves to the vagaries of loneliness.

We do this because our attachment injuries try to recreate the same familiar scenarios from our youth or relationship patterns. And we think, I’m just like this. I always screw up relationships. But we really just need to retrain our neurology, our behavior patterns, our attitudes and responses. Then we can have the love we want without losing ourselves.

Episode 1 should land early next week.

Thanks to all my subscribers for reading my posts and commenting and sharing.

~Jason