Sometimes Small Things Are All You Can Do 55

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with the holy word, "Love." Here are 55 words I came up with tonight.

I have worked today. Devoted time to family. Written at my novel. I am hurt, in wrists and arms. In my psyche. I am tired. Yet I take pains, now, literal pains, to write this for you. You deserve to know someone cares. May I ask, please -- go and let someone else know it too?

55

Thank you, goddess, for the strength to make an effort, even if only a small one.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Goddess 55

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you in a spirit of observance. I wrote the following in my journal, and when I counted it out, it was exactly 55 words without even trying, so I figured I'd post it.

She lives in every moment that joy lights the eyes. She dwells in those places of laughter, those smiles of contentment. When the heart stirs, she is there, and also when the warm glow of sleep in a comfortable bed holds us half-conscious at the cusp of awakening, while pleasant dreams wind themselves to conclusion.

55

Thank you, goddess of love, for serendipity.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee.

I Am Moved

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a kinetic enthusiasm -- a vibrance that is born in momentum.

While out walking tonight, I found myself thinking how important it is to be in motion. 

(In the interest of full disclosure, I had this epiphany while listening to “Girls on Film” by Duran Duran, which may undercut both my philosophical credibility and your faith in me as an aficionado of rock and roll. But if it’s any help, my iPod followed that with “Crush ’Em” by Megadeath.)

Few things deaden the soul so thoroughly as the sense of being inert. Stable becomes static becomes stagnant, and when we feel that we are stuck, everything else begins to turn grey -- regardless of the circumstances in which we have become entrenched. Stillness closes in on us like a trap.

Yet even as we decry our immobility, the urge to move, to work our muscles and propel ourselves, somehow eludes us once we reach that state of entrenchment. We feel that we have been deserted by our winds, abandoned by the stars that might have shown us our way across the sea. The world becomes an endless, flat sargasso, dull and hopeless, where we wait and wait for a new breeze, slowly consuming our stores of water and sustenance until we risk desperation so great that we might drink of the brine and descend into madness.

We forget, somehow, that a brisk walk creates its own wind. That our thoughts can, if so directed, travel in paths that are not circles, to reach destinations that are not bleak.

Remember this: it is better to wander -- utterly lost but determined that you should find something -- than to sit and bemoan your paralysis.

Thank you, goddess of love, for a sense of progress, and for a mystery that I can progress toward.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Seize What You Believe

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a challenge that I am attempting to live up to myself.

Objects come and go. You may attain them, they may please you, and then they may break or become lost or develop a depressing malfunction.

People come and go. They may like you, they may love you, they may betray you, they may desert you.

Circumstances come and go. The job you hate may pass; the job you love may hand you a pink slip. A favorite club may close. The town you have come to know like the back of your hand may suddenly put itself in your rearview mirror.

But none of this means that life is a ceaseless parade of dangled hopes and lost possessions. The fact of transience simply is. It is not good or bad, but merely a fact.

And in one critical way, you can stand firm against transience -- against the ephemeral nature of this world.

You can believe in something, and insist upon believing in it, and hold fast to it.

And who knows? Maybe someday that adamant conviction, if properly displayed, will win you the perfect job that you can ride right through to retirement. Will carry you to a place where you can settle until the end of your days. 

Will attract someone who sticks and does not leave.

But even if it doesn't, your belief alone will get you through -- if only you grip it tightly enough and refuse to let go.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the knowledge that I can be larger than this fickle, fleeting world, as long as I simply demand that I be so.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

The Importance of Being Unimportant

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you from a whirl of chaos, left by the near passing of catastrophe. But I don't intend to write about that.

A very wise person recently suggested to me (not in so many words) that we serve our friends best by being ourselves.

We are important to our friends because of who we are -- not what we do or what we say. They are drawn to us because they enjoy the kinds of things that we naturally do and say when being ourselves.

They need us -- to the extent that they do need us -- because something about the kind of people we are calls out to them.

In good times, this principle requires no conscious acknowledgment or thought on our part. We do as we do, our friends do as they do, and through that wonderful synergy and coincidence, all of our bright lives are made brighter.

But there is a challenge to this simple truth that occurs when things are not so smooth. When a friend is hurting, when a friend could clearly use some comfort or aid, we begin to search for the right thing to do to help. This is not necessarily bad, especially if we are the kind of person who ordinarily spends a lot of time thinking about the right things to do.

However ... if we pressure ourselves, if we insist to ourselves that it is SO important to find the right thing that's needed to help, two insidious things can begin to occur. First, the pressure may cause us to drift from that state of simply being ourselves -- of behaving in the way that caused us to be important to our friends in the first place. Second, our brains may play a little trick on us, perform a little slip that takes us from thinking, "It is SO important to me to help my friend," into thinking, "I need to help my friend because I know how important I am to them."

In pressuring ourselves, we distort ourselves. In focusing too much on the importance of helping, we inflate our own sense of importance. Soon, despite having started from the best of intentions, we have moved into a mode of behavior unlike our ordinary one, a mode which may or may not bear any resemblance to the behavior that drew our friends to us in the first place.

The lesson is, be there for your friends -- but be there by being yourself. Remember that you can't fix your friends, just as they can't fix you. But if you brighten their world by remaining true to the person they find so entertaining or engaging, then you may help them find the support they need to fix themselves.

Don't worry about how important your help might or might not be. Just be as you are, and if you're the right kind of person to start with, your friends will find all the help they need in you, on their own, and naturally.

Thank you, goddess of love, for humbling experiences, and for friends who stick with you even if you go off the rails sometimes.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Celebrations of Life

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with wishes of joy, peace, and generosity for this holiday season.

Christmas is ambivalent for many people. The holidays bring music and decorations that are meant to lift spirits, yet it's often reported that depression spikes upward at this time of year as well. I personally like the secular Christmas carols a lot, but have a harder time listening to some of the more religious ones.

I think that we who doubt the scriptural story of Christmas are challenged by this time of year because we see others attributing joy to a source we cannot credit.

I want to believe in peace and decency and the power of a happy heart, and so it troubles me that I see people expressing these things while ascribing to them an origin I find dubious. Alienated from the cause of their joy, I ask whether my faith in joy itself is therefore in doubt.

Then, too, it is easy to tread the path of cynicism and ask, "If peace and generosity and love of one's fellow man are so important to remember, why not remember them all year long, instead of just for the space of a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day?"

Nor is the task of accepting holiday cheer made any easier by buffoons in the media who try to fire up their listeners with stories about the "War on Christmas," full of outrage that department store chains ask their greeters to say "Happy Holidays" instead of extolling the specifically Christian message that the righteous desire to hear.

But the existence of pettiness and hypocrisy should never be allowed to tarnish that which is real and beautiful. If so many people have larger hearts at this time of year, that is an undeniably good thing, which can never be lessened by the fact that a few of them also have smaller minds than we'd wish.

When large numbers of people celebrate life, sing of hope, and give sanctity to joy, then we should bow our heads with them in appreciation, even if we believe differently than they do.

People are ugly and mean and vindictive year-round. The fact that some of them can be better during the Christmas season, and the fact that most can express wishes for a better world, should give us cause for boundless gratitude.

Thank you, goddess, for all occasions which lift hearts and encourage wonder.

Merry Christmas to all.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Revenge 55

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a story of triumph that I hope will serve you well. 

It surprised Pamela

that she had enemies.

Bosses.

Coworkers.

Strangers

on the road.

She tried so hard to be nice,

but

SOME

people...

ugh!

At last, though,

she finally found

an

absolutely

perfect

vengeance.

Every day, 

she got up in the morning,

and she lived her life

as if none of them

mattered

at

all.

55

Thank you goddess of love, for the knowledge that enemies have no more power over us than we give them.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

When Grace is the Comfortable Norm

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a recommendation, if you find motivation or purpose elusive.

In most large cities, you should be able to call the local ice-skating rink and find out when they have classes and what level of skaters they teach. (Don't worry; I'm not going to recommend skating lessons.) Consider taking a trip down to the rink the next time a high-level class is scheduled, and simply go in and have a seat in the observation area.

You might even have luck just going in during open skating and looking amongst the crowds of skaters for the small number of really proficient ones.

What I want you to look for, and pay attention to, is an excellent skater who is not actively practicing.

A true talent who is just standing around. Perhaps chatting with a friend.

The reason I want you to look for this, and watch it closely if you find it, is simple: it will show you how the pursuit of art changes you.

Whether one likes figure-skating or not, it's an impressive art form that requires extraordinary discipline as well as natural ability. These facts are obvious to us when we see the elaborate routines that good skaters develop and perform.

But what is less obvious is that even when not performing, a truly exceptional skater is something beyond ordinary. The typical person at the rink, whether in motion or still, remains not quite in his or her element. Even people who skate well have a bit of tension, a bit of caution in their posture, when not actively skating. They may be comfortable, even relaxed -- but they will not appear quite as comfortable or relaxed as they would be standing flat on solid ground.

A remarkable skater, though, is different.

A remarkable skater, one who has lived and breathed skating for years, appears just as much at ease on the ice as off -- perhaps even more so. They can be fully preoccupied with something else -- a conversation, or paying attention to a trainer or coach -- and still exhibit complete and effortless grace in their posture and movement.

They have become creatures at home in a strange realm, and this transformation has left them unable to appear clumsy or out-of-balance unless they deliberately attempt something beyond their skill.

In pursuing the ability to create beauty, they have themselves become reflexively beautiful.

And this is where effort takes us, when we aspire to make ourselves capable of beauty: to the place where grace needs no conscious thought.

Of course, if you're already a champion figure-skater and still find motivation and purpose elusive, I guess this post is pretty useless to you.

Thank you, goddess of love, for all those who have in some way made greater beings of themselves.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

The Wilderness of Your Soul

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a metaphor, which I hope does not come off as too painfully overconstructed.

We have within us wild places -- frontiers of our psyche that are little explored, and also woodlands and marshes we have been to time and again, yet never managed to tame. The mind is a place rampant with growth, where our conscious thoughts are the only domesticated residents.

When we focus our consciousness outward, to deal with the people and things around us, we live in a civilized realm, or at least one that puts on a mask of civilization.

But inside, we have passions and memories and reflexes that do not answer to civilized notions.

If we shun those wild places -- if we look only outward, live only for the external events and pressures and stimuli that we encounter -- then our interior frontiers can only grow more wild, more dangerous. Sooner or later, we may be forced to venture into them, and if we have never prepared ourselves to do so, they may consume us.

But whatever the perils of our untrammeled wildlands, they have richness and beauty too. And if we seek their safer quarters, if we explore and search with the right preparation, well equipped for pushing in through trackless, thorny depths, then we can learn how to be safe and even comfortable in their fabulous and natural glory.

There is wildness inside you. Put on your boots and take up your walking stick. Make sure you have matches and a pocketknife with you. 

Find the green glade splashed with sunlight where no one has ever been.

Look up at the vast blue sky.

Let yourself quiver a little at the distant growling that echoes from the shadowy undergrowth nearby.

And know that it is all you.

Do this often enough, and carefully enough, and you will eventually learn which paths through the wilderness of your soul are safest, and which fruits you can carry out of the woods to share with those beyond.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the forests of thought and instinct and, yes, metaphor within us.

Lovingly yours, 

A devotee

An Inner Knowing 55

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a 55 that I thought better-suited to this blog than to my "other writings" one. Here it is:

Worlds open up to the heart that asks itself, "What do you want?" and then waits patiently for an answer.

It is the readiness to know the self that primes us for understanding our place in life.

This trust of what is inside, even things hidden, surpasses any pangs that might assail us from without.

55

Thank you, goddess of love, for questions and for ears.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Be a Spirit in Search of Beauty

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with the holy word "love," and I wish upon you its sister, "beauty."

The title of this post really says all I mean to say at the moment.

Be a spirit in search of beauty.

If you seek, you shall find.

The only real clarification I need to add is, don't be a picky spirit. Don't insist on a certain kind of beauty, don't await the pinnacle of your preconceptions.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the will to look for you in all things.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Give, and Do Not Ask

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a lesson that I seem unable to retain, no matter how many times I learn it.

The old saying insists that It is better to give than to receive.

There are several ways to interpret this. One interpretation is that the act of giving is superior to the act of receiving. I'm kind of dubious of that interpretation, because in an awful lot of situations, receiving just plain rocks. Let's be honest -- if a mysterious black void appeared in the air in front of you, would you rather take a present and throw it into the void, or would you rather a puppy fell out of the void for you? (Assuming you're the kind of person who likes puppies.)

This first interpretation of the phrase suggests that generosity is superior to avarice -- which is true enough -- but if that's all there is to it, then it seems like kind of a weak way to guilt us all into being more generous. I don't like it when people (or aphorisms) try to make me feel guilty, because I've got my own guilt complex to start with and I don't need any help with it, thank you very much. So that's another reason I shy away from this reading of the saying.

A related interpretation is that we should strive to enjoy the act of giving, because if we can teach ourselves to get pleasure from giving, the world will be a better place. I'm a lot more willing to buy this interpretation. But it still carries a rather lecturesome tone. Reading between the lines, one can't help but take it to mean, "You know, you're kind of a selfish twit, and you need to fix yourself. So shape up and do some giving."

But here's the interpretation that I have learned (and keep relearning) to be true.

Giving is simply a better strategy for happiness than receiving.

When you give, you are almost guaranteed to receive some form of gratitude in return. Not in every case, but in most of them. And because the gratitude you receive is unasked-for, it's a bonus. 

In contrast, if you depend on receiving for your happiness, you live your life in a constant state of expectation, and every time that expectation goes unmet, you are disappointed.

So if you give, and give without expectation, life is full of bonus happiness for you, whereas if you hunger to receive, it is full of disappointment.

And if you adopt giving as a strategy, and make it a habit, and find your life constantly enriched by the gratitude that naturally flows your way in response, then sooner or later you find that, without even trying, you've learned to enjoy giving for its own sake.

And then you can give into the void and be delighted by it.

Of course, the giving life requires a lot of energy, and can take a lot out of you. And if you run into a string of ingrates who fail to respond well to your generosity, you can begin to doubt the strategy.

Which is why you need to remember to regularly give to yourself.

There's nothing in the saying that says the giving always has to be giving to others.

Just remember, when you give to yourself ...

Say, "Thank you."

Thank you, goddess of love, for generosity, for gratitude, for lessons learned both easily and through hard knocks.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Forgive Yourself

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with cheeks recently red on a day when the sun is bright in the blue sky outside and I know that things are looking up.

If you're anything like me, you probably think, pretty regularly, "I am such a moron."

Now, you're probably not actually a moron, and you almost certainly know that you're not actually a moron, but life is weird and difficult and forces us to make choices and most of those choices are completely unremarkable and cause us no ill effects, but when even a small choice turns out to be a small mistake, we think, "I am such a moron."

In the best of cases, we think this with a laugh and it is healthy.

But in the not-so-best of cases, we think it and mean it, and in those cases it's a very dangerous thing to think.

There are two reasons why it's so dangerous.

First, our brains are self-reinforcing mechanisms. Habits of thought strengthen neuronal connections in the brain and create the patterns that are our memories and that guide our outlook on life. The more often we think of ourselves negatively, the stronger the negative connections become, and the more quickly our brains jump to those patterns when we receive a negative stimulus. This is the biomechanism of depression, and it's why depressive people can go into a tailspin at even the tiniest problem. Their brains have practiced negativity so thoroughly that the response is automatic.

The second danger is that even if we're not prone to depression, we will start to use "I am such a moron" as an excuse. It will become a shield against the need to improve ourselves. And really, even if you're not a moron (in fact, especially if you're not a moron), you need to improve yourself. 

Not because it is bad to be flawed, but because it is so good and so empowering to conquer your flaws.

Own your mistakes. Forgive yourself for them. Take them in and build a better you with them.

You're definitely not a moron, and I believe in you.

Thank you, goddess of love, for self-forgiveness, and for friends who help us to practice it.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

A Study in Contrasts

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a listening assignment, if you're so inclined.

This is a combination that my iPod kicked up for me over the summer.

First, listen to Devo's It's a Beautiful World.

Then, listen to Amy Correia sing Life is Beautiful.

You have to pay attention to the lyrics on both songs, and I strongly recommend that you minimize the window when listening to the Devo song. The video is brilliant, but I couldn't find video on the Amy Correia song, and I think it's unfair to do a comparison between audiovisual art and purely audio art. Most of us are such visual creatures that the video will always make a stronger impression. If you really want to do things right, open both links in different windows, play the Devo song, and then click over and start the Amy Correia song the instant Devo finishes up.

It's up to you whether you want to complete the assignment now, or read on for my own opinion on the two songs, but of course I'd like you to formulate your impression without contamination from mine (... again, if you're so inclined).

My reaction to hearing these two songs back-to-back was this (taken from a journal entry I wrote at the time):

Earlier this evening, my iPod thoughtfully followed Devo's It's a Beautiful World with Amy Correia's Life is Beautiful. The contrast literally made me cry, even more than Life is Beautiful usually does. I love Devo's wry cynicism, but it was fabulous to have Amy Correia immediately demonstrate how wrong that cynicism is.

I have so many frustrations, so much angst over things of trivial importance and greater significance alike. In some ways, I feel I have been stretched and twisted to my breaking point in recent months.

Yet I have also grown more and more ready to weep at pure beauty, and I would not give up that intensity of feeling for any reduction in stress.

Thank you, goddess of love, for exquisite juxtapositions.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Trust Your Instincts but Doubt Your Judgment

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you wearily but hopefully, in a certain amount of physical pain but with a spirit fairly bright.

Because I'm tired from overwork and my arms and shoulders are warning me not to type too much, I'll see if I can be succinct and to the point here.

What we feel, immediately, powerfully, when we encounter a certain situation or person, is not always correct. Instincts can lead us astray. But no matter what the eventual outcome, our instincts always tell us something. It may be something accurate about the specific incident, or it may be something about ourselves.

The point is, when you feel something nagging at you, or goading you, or enticing you, unbidden, you should explore it and see what it's telling you.

But you have to be careful about how you explore it. Because in pondering our instincts, we unavoidably activate our judgment. We weigh evidence, measure and mutter and debate with ourselves, until we reach a decision. That decision will in some way commit us emotionally, and if we make it incorrectly, the results will eventually be unpleasant.

A good question to ask would be, "Am I drawn toward this judgement because my instincts are telling me it's right, or am I drawn toward this judgment because I desire it?"

When we doubt our instincts, we become paralytic, unable to act. We have no basis for movement, and will usually follow robotically along some path that the world puts before us.

When we blindly pursue our instincts, we are just as trapped, because we are free to act, but we cannot discriminate or plan or prioritize. 

And when we put too much faith in our judgment, we grow arrogant, and will undertake ambitions that are likely to hurt ourselves or others.

But when we trust our instincts, yet doubt our judgment, we become empowered to act with humility. We can say to ourselves, "I choose this course because I have listened to my heart and I think that I know it. But I also know that I may be wrong, and that I may have to correct my course as I move forward."

Well. I don't know if that's coherent, but my arms and my head are too tired for more.

Thank you, goddess of love, for instinct and judgment and a sense of balance.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Three Principles, Revisited

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with the holy word, "Love."

Possibly, we all need reminders once in a while -- I know I certainly need a lot of them. I have about four thousand pages worth of journals in my closet, and when I go paging back through them I am often struck a bit numb by how regularly I encounter the same repeated problems, and the same wise lessons learned -- and then forgotten, and then relearned.

So in this entry, I'm reminding myself, and any of you who've read back to the start of this blog, of the three principles of my religion. (Most religions make a great show of repetition, so I'm not sure why I feel the need to justify this covering of old ground, but there it is anyway.)

The three principles are:

Thankfulness

Generosity

Love

I'm not going to describe them in any greater detail at the moment. Hopefully, they don't really need that much explanation anyway. But they bear repeating.

They bear being dwelt upon.

They are their own reward, and I hope that you will help yourself to them.

Thank you, goddess of love, for good things known over and over and over again.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Be Patient

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with more unasked-for advice. If you're getting tired of this, have no fear: tonight I'm rounding out a sort of trilogy comprising the last three posts. Then I believe I'll be done pontificating for a bit. Here, then, is the capstone post.

You can do something well and still be unhappy.

You can know what you want, and yet find that it seems impossibly far from your grasp.

So the closing key to self-fulfillment must be patience.

It's said that patience is a virtue, but I would argue that it is something else entirely. To me, a virtue is that which in and of itself brings good: honesty, loyalty, generosity, empathy and so on. Because these things bring good, they also render us vulnerable to those who do not care about good. When honest, we put ourselves at risk of being misled or overshadowed by the dishonest. When loyal, we put ourselves at risk of betrayal from those who are disloyal. When generous we may be taken advantage of by the greedy, when empathic we may be abused by the egocentric.

Virtues, then, are noble and ambitious because they aspire to make the world better at the risk of those who undertake them. They are difficult. They are challenging. We must push ourselves toward them, because they are hard -- and because they are dangerous.

Patience, in contrast, is much more of a tool. The saint is patient, but so is the snake. Patience is the condition which lets us move through the world in search of our goals, instead of feeling adrift in it without control.

Patience is openness -- the willingness to wait and see.

So if you know what you want, but have not yet found how to do it well, be patient. Practice. Study. Keep an eye out for other things that you might want, and which might perhaps suit your talents better. A path will make itself known eventually.

If you can do plenty of things well, but do not know what you want, be patient. Exercise your capabilities. Look for new experiences. Talk. Read. Listen. Think. A passion will capture you sooner or later.

And if you know what you want, and you already do it well, and success still eludes you and leaves you stuck in circumstances that block your creative efforts and stifle your inspiration ... be patient. The moments in which you have your focus, in which you do as you wish and excel in your chosen desire -- those are treasures worth waiting for. Let yourself float through the tiresome intervals in between those gilded times. Do not resist the rest of your life, but embrace it with the certainty that it will sooner or later bring you back to the thing that you wish, give you a moment here and a moment there to progress toward whatever it is that you most fancy, and sooner or later will grant you the appropriate reward for all your many efforts.

Do not strive to be patient. Be patient so that you have the comfort to strive for your dreams.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the tool of patience and the knowledge of how to wield it.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Know What You Want

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with another notion gleaned from music, and I hope for your forbearance if you find yourself unable to identify with my admittedly peculiar tastes.

I bought a CD some months back by a band called Dragonforce. I bought it not so much because I thought that it was going to be genuinely good, but because I'd listened to some song samples on Amazon.com and a video or two on Youtube, and I found myself full of admiration for the purity of this band's ambitions.

Dragonforce is not a bunch of guys who thought, "We'd like to be musicians." They're not a bunch of guys who thought, "We'd like to be rock and roll musicians." They did not form their band because they wanted to be heavy metal musicians, or, more specifically, power metal musicians.

One listen to a Dragonforce song (assuming you're the kind of person who can listen to this kind of music), and you'll be certain, as I was, that Dragonforce was formed out of the burning desire of each of its members to be absolutely the fastest power metal band in the history of rock and roll, EVER.

Now, it's debatable whether this ambition is something that anyone truly ought to aspire to. I've come across people online deriding Dragonforce as a collection of simple-minded Johnny One-notes who have managed to completely master a single narrow form of instrumental proficiency at the expense of any real musical or emotional sophistication. And I'll admit, no one is very likely to say, "Wow, the evocative nuances of that latest song by Dragonforce struck something so deep in me that I almost choked up." 

But all of that is missing the point.

While I might wish that Dragonforce used a little more syncopation, made more use of varied dynamics, and explored some more experimental time-signatures or key changes, one fact is clear to anyone with an ear for a wide variety of music: Dragonforce is a group of musicians who have become successful by knowing exactly what they want to do and pursuing it with passion.

You may find Dragonforce pointless, superficial, or outright unlistenable, but you can't deny that they are sincere. And I think it takes a pretty small person to say it's not enough for someone to combine sincerity, desire, drive, talent and accomplishment in pursuit of art that others will enjoy.

Do you know what you want? Art? Travel? Spiritual enlightenment? Love? Have your efforts toward these things been directed and focused? Did you learn what it takes to be good at the thing you aspire to? Are the results something you are proud of?

If you can answer "yes" to most of those questions, then it does not matter how modest or how grand your ambitions are. It does not matter if you are Mozart, or Dragonforce, or Shakespeare, or just an anonymous blogger.

Knowing what you want and doing it puts you in the company of the most accomplished people in the world.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the path to an identity that is real and whole.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Do Something Well

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a suggestion that limitations may not be such a bad thing.

Are you familiar with the theme song from the James Bond movie Moonraker? (And before you get sarcastic, yes, I'm aware of the irony of writing about Moonraker in a post titled "Do Something Well." The movie is silly and cheesy in ways that I love, but that I acknowledge are not for everyone.)

It's an amazing song, brilliantly composed by John Barry and featuring vocals by Shirley Bassey, who somehow manages to be both bold and elusive at the same time in just about every line of the lyrics.

The melody is astounding, and the singing is flawless, and both of those elements demonstrate what vast and prominent talents Barry and Bassey possess. Not many of us in this life get to be a John Barry or a Shirley Bassey, although it's a good thing to aspire to.

There is, however, another element of the song that you may never have noticed, even if you've heard it dozens of times. All through the song, steady and unwavering as the other instruments weave in and out, some percussionist is playing the triangle.

Who is he? Or she? I have no idea. I don't even have any idea how to find out. Probably, only a couple of his/her close friends and/or family members know, "Oh, yeah, s/he's the guy/gal who played the triangle on Moonraker." (Well, I suppose John Barry and the other members of the orchestra might also remember.)

My point is, it's a frickin' awesome triangle part.

Maybe you can't be John Barry. Maybe you can't be Shirley Bassey. Maybe you can't even be Richard Kiel, famous for playing a giant thug in two or three cheesy movies from the '70s and '80s. But maybe you can play the heck out of a triangle, because you have the patience and the rhythm and the ethereally gentle touch to master an instrument that most people don't particularly care about and many people don't even know exists.

Find what you can do well, and be happy that you can do it well -- especially if it brings happiness to others.

Thank you, goddess of love, for opportunities, whatever size, shape, or sound they come in.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

For Lack of Trying

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you fresh from exercise of the body and relaxation of the mind.

As I started my nightly walk this evening, a nagging desire to come up with a new post bedeviled me. What to think about? What to write about? Could I apply myself and distill some essence of wisdom to share?

Stride and stride and stride went past, squares of sidewalk under my tennis shoes, the bow of the yellow moon hovering glowful above the treetops. Despite having mulled the subject for only a few minutes, I felt utterly lacking in inspiration.

And then I rebelled against my hunger to be inspired. I thought, "Just walk. It's ridiculous to try to force something that's not there. You don't have to be wise -- just be."

I felt much better immediately. But more to the point, I had not taken another five steps when the following hit me, unbidden and uncoerced:

Wisdom will come, or it won't. There's no point in stretching, seeking, reaching, searching for it, because wisdom is not a goal. 

It is a consequence.

So there it is. If you must seek, then seek to have the right kinds of experiences. Learning will follow in due course.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the patience to just be.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee