The Search for Meaning

A friend recently told me that now that she has all of the money she needs, and doesn't really need to work anymore, and she now finds herself struggling to find meaning in anything that she can do.  She told me that she didn't expect much sympathy, as this problem is not one that really plucks at most people's heart strings, but I knew EXACTLY what she was talking about.  A year after I moved to Costa, I felt the exact same thing.  While I didn't have much money, the world was open to me.  I could do anything at all.  And I was stuck.  What on Earth would be meaningful?  There seemed to be no reason to make one choice over another.

I asked myself if really I thought I might just move back to the States, get a job, and be just like everyone else in the world.  Disgusted with the thought, I packed my bags, and here I am. Just like everyone else around me.  Meaningless.

But last week, I realized something.  Six years ago, just post-Hoffman, I experienced a few months of clarity.  Openness to the world.  Happiness.  Love.  Freedom.  Detachment.  I've described it in detail, I'm sure.  But what I realized last week is that in that time of my life when I felt most me, most alive, most in touch with the universe, I didn't concern myself with meaning. 

And then it hit me.  When you are you - when you allow yourself to let God/the light/the Holy Spirit/your spirit drive you and all of your programming/patterns/habits/pain body are stripped away, you become meaningful.   You don't have to think about what you can do that would be meaningful, because what you do is meaningful.  Whatever it is.  At that point, trying to determine the purpose of your actions or of your being is, in fact, meaningless. 

And so I again set on my life's pursuit.  I'm no longer convinced it is to find the middle way.  It is to just be me.  At any cost. 

But to find the courage to make that leap...

I am again feeling that you can't ease into it.  You must make that leap.  But where that strength comes from...

The New Environment

I was in a discussion today with Kelli, and the homeless came up when talking about responsibility.  And I had a thought that I thought was worth sharing.

Those that don't want to live in society don't have a place to go. Society has replaced the environment with society.  It has robbed the fish from the rivers, the buffalo from the plain, and the fruit from the trees.  Society now is the environment.

Some choose to just live off of the environment.  Something that may be much closer to our nature as human beings.  It's sad for them that their environment is now our society, and instead of catching fish or gathering berries, they instead have to beg for money and live off of the government.  And they lose a sense of self worth - because they now have to beg, borrow, perhaps even steal to even just live.

And we judge them for it.  We judge them for taking what we 'made' or 'earned' without recognizing that we took the lush environment that would have supported them otherwise.

Sure, there are many that beg for booze or steal for drugs.  And that's sad and deserves perhaps even more compassion.  But to judge those that just want to live, and are forced to live off of this new environment because the old environment doesn't exist - that just seems like we're pointing the finger in the wrong direction.

Searching for the Middle Way

It occured to me today that a large portion of my earlier blogs tried to reconcile a spiritual existence with a human existence.  It seems that even one single attachment, one want, one desire - one single human element makes a spiritual existence impossible.  In fact, just one single human element starts a chain reaction that runs its course to a totally human existence, practically void of spirituality.  I won't get into the logic here, but my experience has shown that to be true for me. 

And in meditation today, as I opened my eyes, there sat a buddha statue in front of me, smiling at me.  And I realized that the Buddha went through the same experience.  He could not find his way to enlightenment from a human existence.  He had to totally give up his entire human existence in order to attain enlightenment.  Afterwards, he was able to look back and develop the middle way - a moderate path to enlightenment. 

I'm no Buddhist.  But I'm frustrated by the search for the happy middle ground - the ability to be spiritual and human at the same time.  Several years ago, I made a quick switch from 95% human to 90% spiritual.  That 10% humanity left in me has grown and grown for the past several years to 90%, and in the meantime, it feels like my spirituality has shrunk to the remaining 10%. 

What I seek is to survive within the human world - with all of its distractions - but remain fully spiritual - without want or attachments - filled with love.  I just don't know how those can possibly coexist. 

But that is my search.  To find my middle way.  And this must be my life's work.

It's Time

Three and a half years since my last blog.  I don't even know if this is still active, and if it is, why.  But I'm going to start writing again.  Honest, pure, alive.  May not be as many pictures.  But it's time I stop waiting for inspiration, and start writing as life is.  Today is my restart.  Tomorrow I'll find something to actually say.

Creation and Destruction

Background story: So, I began a quick email to Greg, a friend of mine with whom I attended college. You see, Greg and I had many very late night runs to the 7-11 across the street from my dorm on the way home from the bars, with only one purpose - to gorge ourselves on 7-11 nachos. And because of that, I started to write a quick email to Greg saying that I went to 7-11 late the other night, and got some nachos, and thought of him. But this is how the email turned out...

Last night I went and got WORD REDACTED with a friend in Arlington, and as we wandered around aimlessly in the entirely unfamiliar Clarendon area looking for our car that we misplaced somewhere in the middle of the evening, we happened upon a 7-11. Freezing cold, we became quickly distracted from our search by the comfort of the familiar orange and green sign - a 24 hour front porch light inviting us to come home. Upon entering our sterile, couchless living room through the knobless glass doors, we knew our destination without even having to discuss. A quick and painless conversation with a nervous Nepali housemate behind the counter pointed us in the direction of the most incredible home appliance known to man and the little plastic packages that sit next in anticipation of assistance.

As I ripped open the surprisingly strong outer wrapping, I smiled devilishly like a 9 year old boy with a water balloon as the cute girl slowly approaches from around the corner. But the true joy began as my friend and I together depressed the first of a series of two red buttons on the ingenious apparatus, and the not quite solid but not quite liquid earth-brown substance found its temporary home on the rolling hills of corn below, seemingly flipping the horizon in the miniature world I held in my hands.

But from the below which was now the above, a force of wonder was brewing. This phenomenon, millions of years in the making, was just one more finger press from being unleashed on the new inverted continental crust formed by the previous, almost perfect union. And like an earthquake that unveils a fault reaching to the depths of the core, the electronic signal following the depression of the second button shook the countertop steel appliance, and a flow of violent yellow lava was unleashed on the unsuspecting field below.

And as I stood in awe at the beauty of the creation of our little universe, I had the brief understanding of how God felt at the end of the third day. But my time of creation had ended. Inside of me the pre-determined shift to destruction had already begun. And while I gave myself a brief moment to admire what would soon no longer be, the devilish boy inside raised his water balloon with the target both in his sights and within striking distance.

Ecstasy.

As my friend and I used our fingers to finish the cycle of creation and destruction, completing the disappearing act with the last trickle of the now semi-cool lava, we knew this was but one cycle in the endless circle of life. While this cycle had come to a close, and we said our goodbyes to our new Nepali friend, we had no regrets and no lamentation. Instead, we left with a sense of belonging, a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose. For a brief moment, just before we re-entered the cold, car-less world outside, we knew the universe around us as we had known the universe we had just created and consumed, and we felt - peace. And I thought of Greg.

Openness and Designed Encounters

I headed to the train station in Orange County to head north to LA during a torrential downpour about 10 days ago. The plan was to meet up with Greg, go get some dinner with him and Annette, and perhaps have a chance to see an adorable girl for an hour before she had to head to her graveyard shift at the clinic where she works. Of course, this is jumping into the middle of a larger story, which I'll share next.

But here's a great story within a story - the train never came. In fact, about 30 minutes before it was meant to arrive and take me to LA, the ticket agent told me she would have to refund my ticket fare because the train was stuck in San Diego due to flooding. Next train was almost three hours out. Ouch.

I scurried to find another way, but it was looking unlikely and dinner with Greg and Annette, and perhaps an hour with the adorable redhead, looked like it might have to be postponed. Until a sweet 45ish Latina woman walked through the front door, also quickly finding out that the northbound train isn't going to make it. "Fine, I'll just drive home then," she said. And of course, I overheard, or I wouldn't have written it here. "Excuse me, ma'am, umm, where exactly is home? Is it here in Orange County, or do you mean it's up in LA." "LA, why, do you need a ride?" "YES, please, that would be amazing, thank you so much." "Where are you headed?" "I don't know, but anywhere in LA would be great." "Hop in." Wow. WOW.

But here's the amazing part. I began to tell her about me, and the obvious question quickly came up. "What in the hell happened to you?" I don't think she actually used those words, but she would have if she wasn't being polite. And as I explained my spiritual transformation in March 2008 and the following dramatic changes in my personality and how that really led me to be in California right now on this pseudo-business trip, her eyes started to kinda well up, especially as I spoke about how angry I was beforehand and how (relatively) free I am of anger now. And she looked at me, and asked if I believed in God. I said sure, probably not in the way you believe, but I'm sure we're not that different.

And she said - "I've never really believed this before, but I think God brought us together today. I've been getting angrier and angrier every day. I can't get it out of me. I believe you are here to help me let it go."

And you know what? I think she's right. I shared my experience, and we talked about hers. I simply shared - forgiveness, giving up control, acceptance of yourself and others, watching your experience instead of identifying with it, love, laughter. And SHE shared - her work, her mother, her stuck life. And while I'll never know whether or not our hour conversation had a lasting impact on that wonderful woman, when I left the car I tried to give her some money for the trouble. And with a hug in her eyes, she said, "Absolutely not. You can't ever understand, but it is I who owes you."

And of course she doesn't. Because here's what's wonderful about it... It was free. It cost neither of us anything. Sure, she went a little out of her way to drop me off at the original train station I was headed for (which I actually arrived before the train would have if it hadn't been stuck in SD), but neither of us were really taxed. Instead, we JUST shared. Openly.

Openness. First mine in reaching out to ask a stranger for a favor. And then hers to offer a stranger a favor. Openness to the possibility that there's something out there looking out for us. Openness in sharing our feelings, experiences, problems, failures, guilt, shame, and love. Simply being open. That's all it took.

It's wonderful how much we can get for so little input if we just allow ourselves to be open to the world. Which, by the way, is actually a good segue into the larger story, which I'll write about, umm, tomorrow. Perhaps after I share a short meaningless metaphorical email I accidentally found myself writing to Greg the other day, the end result of I found quite amusing. Even amusing enough to share.

NYC NYE 2009/10

WOW.

Okay, it's now been two weeks since New Year's Eve weekend, so I've had some time to process (and sober up). Here's a brief recount (obviously, this is the online version of events - PG-13).

I've had a lot of fun with over the past several years. Awesome times like Ranch Party Weekends, Friendsgivings, Beer Golfs, Roadtrips in Costa, Night in Ecuador come to mind.

Ranch Party Weekend - circa 2006

And while each of those were absolutely amazing, and I mean AMAZING, New Year's Eve this year deserves to be on that list, and perhaps in a different list of its own.

You see, it's all about synergy. Yes, I used the word synergy there. Somehow there was a great collision on NYE of people from Oklahoma, from DC, from Virginia, from Jersey, and from New York. And with that collision came some sort of synergistic (yes, I used the word synergistic) explosion followed by a mass of such great density that it pulled in free-spirits from California, Indiana, Florida, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, Ireland, Spain, and countless other communities from across the world. And what resulted was magical.

To add some quick highlights, it all started with, well, Doug. Maybe. And Brad. Doug and Brad were old friends - perhaps grew up together. And Doug at one point decided to visit Brad in DC, with the idea of going to visit Brad's cousin up in New York for NYE. Doug made the mistake of telling me, which was the final straw in my decision to move to DC in the first place. Doug was eventually joined by Jon, and the four of us embarked in the morning of the 31st to the Jersey Shore for Part 1: Awesome.

You see, by the time we even got to our hotel on NYE, before we had even had dinner or gone to a great club on the beach, we had had a successful NYE. In fact, we had already had an incredible NYE. Maybe the ride wasn't quite as awesome as the NYEs we used to spend in Aspen, but it definitely beat my last one with dengue in Costa. Just non-stop laughter, seat dancing, and roadside pee breaks. You see, we grabbed some 40's of Hurricane and some Mad Dog, and the fun began. And the laughter began. Oh, by the way, this is me before we even went out on NYE...

I just wrote a lot about that first night, and decided I was not going to do all this justice. I'll just enter some highlights for my own personal entertainment:

• Seven.
• Free entrance.
• No numbers.
• Five AM nachos with Doug and Brad in 7-11. IN 7-11.
• Doughnuts - in parking lot and as table in 7-11.
• Wake and run.
• Rally.

Skip skip skip. Brother Jimmy's on the East side, the start of Part 2: Awesomer: The Real Start. I'm showing this picture again, because this was the epitome. It leaves out three of the seven, but includes some of the most fun and loving people we had the pleasure of laughing with.

While we had met Danny the night before, it wasn't until Friday afternoon that the synergy really kicked in. With the introduction of Kevin, previously in the NFL, and Lauren, the coolest girl in NYC now that Alex has moved to Long Island, the crew was put together. Danny seemed to call the plays, Kevin led in running them, Jon ran in front wearing down the defense, Doug hammered the ball through the line, Lauren in the cheer section kept us all motivated, Brad took 'em by surprise with his sneak plays, and well, I just did my best to pick up fumbles and maybe fill in for one of the others on an as needed basis when he or she got lost in the cheers of the crowd. All time offense.

But somehow we were rockstars. Perhaps this perception is partially alcohol induced, but I've been inebriated before, and this was different. Something about the seven of us lit up the world around us. From the moment we walked in to a bar, people wanted to be part of us. Rooms full of immediate best friends. Everyone taking pictures, waitresses doing shots, guys raising glasses, barbacks working double-time to wash glasses, and bartenders celebrating. We were IT. From 30th and 3rd to Hoboken to Chelsea, we left in our wake a lasting image.

We could do anything. The amount of confidence grew and grew. And at no point did it become arrogance. There was never a better-than-thou attitude. No, instead, the more confidence we got, the more amazing everyone else seemed. We loved EVERYONE. Guys, girls, Americans, foreigners, outgoing, introverted, lovers, and even haters (I think there was only one, from Princeton, by the way).

It wasn't just about us, it was about EVERYONE.

Living on thousands of calories of alcohol, a couple hundred from the food we could stomach, and a few short hours of sleep a night, we ran the most inebriated weekend of my life. And it was glorious. And while Brother Jimmy's was incredible, it only picked up momentum from there. That place down the street from Danny's. That other place down the street from Danny's. That place that starts with Green. That place after the place that starts with Green.

That place in Chelsea near the Pink Elephant. The Pink Elephant. Flashes, shots, eyes, foggers, laughter, dancing, fist pumping, singing, hugging, more flashes, gloves, hair, plaid, tattoos, bouncers, credit cards, ATMs, more shots, phone numbers, a whirlwind of highs and highers, bottles, tables, thousands and thousands of dollars. More laughter. More laughter. And more laughter.

Love.

Part 3: Awesomeness. And in the end, more than just memories and amazing friends from coast to coast. More importantly, for me anyway, a change. A change in the way I view strangers. A change in the way I experience new friends. A new openness to people I've never had before. A new understanding of myself - an awareness of the love I can experience in any place in life, whether in a shack in Latin America or a club in New York City. So much of life exists, and I can love it all. I find myself chatting with the guy selling tickets for the IMax theatre. I find myself hugging a stranger at a bar, joining into groups that aren't mine in favor of the people I went with. I find myself - open. To the world.

Perhaps it seems superficial, and god knows it was. But in the end it left a deeper, meaningful impression. I feel like in spite of being a child for the weekend, I gained a little wisdom, a little maturity, and found just a little more of me. And for that, I am just thankful.

And I still can't stop laughing.