BE.

I’m info-sick. Aren’t you? 

There’s so much to read, and watch, and write, and do, and feel bad about not reading or watching or writing or doing. An alternative title to this piece was: How the hell do you guys have time for all this? 

I quit the shortform video content. I quit the bad boyfriend. It wasn’t enough. Turns out, when you choose the discomfort of void over the comfort of placid shrinking, it’s a choice you have to keep making. It’s a choice that gets harder as your adversary evolves. 

Void is hungry, void is strong. Void is hope, desire; it is also craving. Master void, and receive everything; succumb, and be crushed. 

Void is the tilled earth of your life. You choose void with your hands full of seeds, but gardening is a lot of work for a lot of reasons. And you’re just so tired. 

This is to say: it can feel like living an embodied life requires an unsustainable level of vigilance. Like, if I take my eye off the ball for one second, I'm failing. Any falter in my endurance endangers all progress toward my vision (for the work, for the love I am capable of). 

But, no! Choose to see the world with more flexibility! Choose to operate from a place of more trust. Choose courage, agility, humility - and, yeah, I’ll say it. Self-compassion. 

pearlieee:

“Every experience is necessary for where I am headed… I do not believe that everything happens for a reason. But then, if it happened to me, I have the power to assign it a purpose… All you need to see is yourself, your feet, your hands, and as soon as you place one foot in front of the other, the ground which it touches becomes the right path.” 

Everyone reading this is a different person. Our wounds, diversions, distractions, down seasons, and apparent setbacks are all differently-shaped. You are not the thing, you are everything. You look the thing in the face. You trust that repair is possible; you repair. You assign it a purpose. You turn the wheel, or step back from the map and move the road. Both are available to you. 

Robert Jordan: 

“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.” 

Void is possibility. Void is a slab of marble, a canvas, a stage, a blinking cursor. Void has hands like fire. Void loves you very much. 

Do nothing and, you know, you’ve done nothing. You have to pick, jump, pivot, speak before you’re ready, hit the pavement with your laces undone. What results is just that: it is all there is. You translated your internality as best you could, and your child walks. 

Given a thousand ideas, the one you make real was the right one, because it’s the one you made real. The right one is this one, because it’s the one you have. You could not have made another choice, because you didn’t. It’s just you, your instrument, and what flows. There is nothing else. 

Martha Graham: 

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.” 

Chuck Palahniuk: 

“your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it's all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary.”

There is what you have done, what you are doing, what you will do. Tricks of the light, all: what you have not done, are not doing, will not do. 

Don’t worry! You have enough time for your life’s work. Die right now, and your life’s work is done. Fin, drop curtains. No one has enough time! We can spend our lives grieving this fact, and often do. This does not change it. 

Thankfully, one exception to the near-infinite power of your mind is this: you don’t get to decide whether or not you’re enough. You just are.