I was doing myself a disservice.

I told myself that the goal of the posts was to dig deeper, peel back the layers, get down to the core.

But by publishing online (or on-chain as the case may be), I was subconsciously writing for others, even if I told myself that I didn't care if others read.

So, in an effort to be more authentic, I figured I'd stop publishing and start doing a private journal.

Within 2 hours of that decision, 2 different people offered me unsolicited praise for the posts and their authenticity.

Now, I felt the struggle.

For whom am I writing?

And why?

The ego says, "you have a value you provide to others. You should serve them."

The self says, "you'll never get really deep if you always know that someone else might read it."

I'm struggling.

Maybe that's the point?

Learn to sit with both and do both?

Or maybe it's not binary. Maybe there's a way to square this circle...

The picture becomes clear.

The value becomes apparent.

But so too the ugly truths.

The things that make me scared; make me sad; make me want to cry.

So, despite the feeling of fullness that comes from seeing the landscape, my mind responds, like an emergency vehicle, seeking to whisk me away so I don't need to feel the discomfort, the pain, the brutal reality.

But, I'm not in the back of the ambulance. I'm the driver.

And I need to sit, patiently, waiting for a real call, not a false alarm.

The markets are volatile.

The interactions are halting, stilted, and cautious.

I feel like the overboard sailor clinging to a life preserver.

Heart is racing. Palms are sweaty. Muscles are taut. Mind is telling me, "you're doomed, man, do what you can to protect yourself."

I feel powerless. Scared.

Fear projects me forward...."this is how it's going to be forever."

And it might be.

But, below the waves, it's calm.

If only I could find a way to connect, to align, and to be the tranquil depths while the storms rage.

"Once I started counted my blessings, my life changed."

-Willie Nelson

Bombarded my messages from marketers, we are told that are lives are not fulfilling, not satisfying, that there's an empty void which can only be filled by their product.

But just like overeating on Thanksgiving feels bad, so does overconsumption.

The void may actually be a blessing. It's an awareness catalyst, reminding me of all I have surrounding it.

Instead of focusing on the missing, I focus on the present.

Maybe there's no void after all.

But, like the feather, it's not grounded. It can flitter and float away.

Value is also ephemeral. We know it when we see it. We feel it, somewhere deep inside. Something connects to us, saying "yes, this is worth it."

The "it" that it's worth is energy.

Energy in the form of time, attention, money.

The things of which our possession is limited.

There's a reason why all the great traditions point to "contentment" rather than "happiness" as the goal.

I turn my own attention inward, digging deeper and deeper to understand, no, to feel the frequency and hear the melody of my soul.

It's there, in the silence, the stillness, the absence of "happiness" distractions.

Sensing it, opening up the channel...then I allow for the energy of value to connect, empower, and fill the tank of contentment.

They are a distant vision, a blurry scene in a movie watched a long time ago.

Endless summers. Twilight hours. "Just a little more time!"

The biggest worry was being picked for a team and not being last.

The biggest fear was losing the game, not finding the hider.

The larger world, outside of the court, the playground, or the playroom...not even a moment of consideration.

And now?

There are moments of joy, of course, but the blessing of Awareness is also the curse.

Knowing the moment will not, cannot last.

Knowing the waves of the world beyond will crash on these shores, destroying this beautiful, albeit temporary, castle.

The search, the quest, the yearning....return to the one, in spite of the other.

In fact, it’s passing.

There are many ways to tell that, but one of the ways is the fact that the phlegm which comes us is getting smaller.

But, it’s coming from a much deeper part of my lungs.

And it takes a lot more work to surface and eject it.

I’ve named them the “Phlegmnants.”

It occurred to me that this physical experience is a manifestation of the process of spiritual renewal/renaissance.

A virus is implanted in our spirit. Whether by family or society, there’s a foreign body that impacts the way we behave.

For a long time, it festers, growing, until it affects the health of the host organism.

Then, the process of treatment and healing must be gone.

At first, the big pieces of the societal viral phlegm are kicked out, but the hard work is the phlegmnants.

They are in deep, are resilient, and it takes determination.

And it’s not fun. Not supposed to be.

But hopefully, it’ll be worth it.

They pound down and the body must brace to receive the impact. The shoulders are hunched, the stomach radiates a message outward to every point, “be firm, more is coming.”

The back takes a pounding, waffling between hunching to protect, and becoming erect to absorb. Feet seek to find their footing, as do hands.

For a moment, the eyes might open and see the images beyond the water cascading relentlessly in front. “Out there,” apparently, is the calm, tranquil world, but “in here,” it’s chaos. Noise, commotion, pressure.

But, I wonder if that can be flipped?

I wonder if it’s possible to accept that, as long as life continues, the water of the uncertain future will crash down upon me and that maybe, just maybe, I can train myself to find the tranquility within?

The breath is the key to the door of certainty.

Certainty that, as long as I am here, feeling the water, I am fortunate to be here, feeling the water.

So, I should just feel the water.

It’s not that I don’t respect you. It’s that, for some reason, what you’re saying is not landing in a place of low friction.

I’m feeling resistance.

It manifests as angst, a shiver, depth of despair and fear that there is future suffering to be experienced and which I want to avoid.

But why is there resistance?

Is that my ego, stubbornly trying to defend a self-image?

Or is it my True Self, gently deflecting because this isn’t the path that needs to be trodden?

Or, just maybe, the advice isn’t really about me at all.

Maybe it’s given because the giver has a void she’s trying to fill?

All of them are parts of the elaborate defense system my ego has constructed.

Its intentions were pure: nourish and protect the vulnerable Self, the bit of eternity, of infinity, that powers Life.

Once upon a time, it was necessary, like a crib, a diaper, a bottle, or a car seat.

But there comes a time when those items are not only not necessary, but counter-productive to growth, robbing me of the raw experience of Living, stealing Awareness and Presence.

I am grateful for their role, their assistance, their service.

But the useful period of these tools has come to an end.

It’s time to let go.

It grabs hold of my thought patterns, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, like a wave crashing then receding on the beach.

But it’s there and it won’t go away.

Like the wave.

Even if I don’t look at it, I feel it. It’s in my subconscious. The energy, the noise.

It’s worry.

Worry about what might happen. Worry about what I don’t know.

For a moment, the worry is helpful. It’s a blessing. It raises my awareness to a potential threat.

But only for a moment.

How long before I either do something or let the worry go completely?

Lingering worry, without action, is like a cancer that metastasizes.

Eventually, it causes immobility.

And then the fears are realized.

When I do, I shudder. I recoil. A chill goes down my spine and a feeling of nausea and revulsion swirls in my stomach.

They are simply, well, gross.

It’s the things about myself that don’t make me proud. That make me feel ashamed. Embarrassed. Full of self-loathing. Followed by self-admonishment.

Disappointed that this part of me still exists, despite my desire that it doesn’t.

But wishing they weren’t there is like wishing the fridge magically cleaned itself.

Periodically, I just have to put on some latex gloves, get out the cleaner and a dish towel, empty the fridge, find the rotten stuff, and scrub things down.

Then I just try to be more mindful of what I put in the fridge, when, and how long it’s been there.

And, still, I need to accept that the ugly truths will, invariably, be there again.

Thanks to my friend, Heidi, for inspiring this one.

Easy to see in a physical reaction.

Less easy to notice in an emotional reaction.

Someone says something or does something and I feel the resistance building within.

I feel the face get tense, the eyebrows furl, the shoulders tighten.

A ball of energy starts bouncing inside me, increasing in speed like a bubble boiling in a pot.

That’s not a law of nature.

A rock being pushed across a floor will always create some amount of friction.

An interaction with another person or an event does not have to.

In the in-between moments, like a mechanic servicing a car, I seek to apply emotional lubrication.

It’s not about “not feeling.”

It’s about creating the channels for the energy of the reaction to flow with the appropriate power and strength.

It’s about experiencing life’s wonder it its fullest capacity, but not so strongly that it bursts through the retaining walls and floods the area, leading to disaster.

What is wanted.

There’s a pull. A yearning. A “fire in the belly.”

It rouses before dawn and keeps going well after sunset.

The specific may be difficult to explain, but the general makes sense to many.

But, often, despite the grind, the toil, the pushing…the vision is not only not achieved, there’s a moment when the possibilities collapse and the reality emerges.

To what exists. To what is held.

Whether it was wanted or not, it’s what is there.

Grief and mourning are appropriate.

But so is joy and celebration.

Even if it feels like it is forced.

Because somewhere, right near to where the fire, the yearning, and the pull were, is the true product of the work.

“No mud, no lotus.”

Just because the lotus isn’t seen and appreciated yet, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

sIt shocks us out of our perception of what is “normal” and “regular.” We notice it. We feel the unease. We feel unbalanced as if a huge wave has hit the small canoe in which we find ourselves.

The stomach churns. Or maybe there’s just a “pit,” a void of the unknown promising nothing but eternal darkness and eternal falling.

But the “suddenly” is preceded by the “gradually.”

The subtle shifts. The drip of the water against the stone that we know is there, but have become immune to because, well, it’s always there.

And so we don’t notice it.

But if we do, we know how the story is going to end.

The water will, eventually, crack the rock. The first 5 million drops don’t matter, but the 5,000,0001st gets the job done.

And then it becomes the “suddenly.”

As I started the run, I thought of all of the mornings I had run on the treadmill.

“This is what I was training for,” I thought.

There are moment when the amplitudes of life seem heightened.

When we are aware of the passage of time, of the significance of the experience.

When we feel the energy of experience raising us up, like riding a wave in the ocean, being pushed up and forward at the same time, with a bit of control of our bodies, mostly at the mercy of the environment.

But, if we have prepared ourselves during the “downtimes,” doing the practice, “putting in the reps,” and “taking care of business,” we can, it seems to me, give ourselves the opportunity to be in the moment even more.

There’s something like a "Moment-o-meter,” which tells us how present we are.

The more work we’ve done before, the higher the “Moment-o-meter” might go.

And

It’s a “feel.” It’s a “vibe.” There’s some deep, primordial almost, resonance where the body acts like an instrument, reading the moment and guiding us in one direction or another.

Sometimes it’s subtle. Perhaps too subtle. Like a faint breeze across your nose.

Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Perhaps too much. Like that moment when you know you’re getting a cold.

There’s no logic or rational to it. It’s formless. It’s the faith that there’s an inner voice speaking an eternal wisdom which deserves attention.

Courage is the practice of learning to clearly hear that inner voice and then to move in the physical world based on it…even if all of the outer voices (our own and those around us) tell us to do something differently.

And the ultimate courage is to continue doing it when we thought we heard the voice and we acted, but it turns out, we

Can’t be touched.

They exist in the abstract, the conceptual.

The “containers” for the transfer of this “wealth” are infinitely expandable.

Their forms evolve to meet the needs of their content.

Nothing physical lasts. Nothing.

I practice letting go of the attachment to the physical, the temporal.

Not with sadness, but with the joy of knowing that the vehicle has served its appointed purpose for its appointed time, no matter how “long” or “short.”

The result is a slow accumulation of increasing serenity.

Not always, of course, but it’s there.

Five times per day, it sends you a notification that says “Remember, you are going to die.”

On the surface, it seems morbid.

But it’s actually one of the most life-affirming things I do.

There’s a strand of Buddhist who believe that, if you contemplate death 5 times per day, you’ll be more content.

And contentment, according to the Tao Te Ching, Kohelet, Pirkei Avot (google/chatgpt them), is the key.

How does contemplating death do that?

Because it is a forcing function on stripping away the frivolities and the temporal-the fancy cars, vacations, and dinners-to focus on the most important things-relationships, people, and impact.

Nothing physical lasts.

Legacy, if I have one, is made up of the ephemeral.

Eventually, that truth dawns on all of us.

The question is: when?

And then what do we do about it?

How do we live differently…every day?

How do we “put in the reps” and play the longest possible game?

I am attracted to them. Even attached to them.

Letting go of the need, the desire, for the reward, for the outcome feels overwhelming and scary.

The “goal” sits like a heavy stone in my stomach, figuratively-and literally-weighing me down, keeping my orientation on some imagined future state, some imagined future happiness.

Meanwhile, as John Lennon said, “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

But it’s hard. Really, really hard. I’m terrified of what my identity and self-image become if, nay when, I actually abandon the compulsive attachment to the goal and instead lean in and savor the process of getting there…even if it never comes.

I used to always try and lift the stones-no matter how heavy-all at once.

Now, I see that the power comes from watching the stone every day, seeing the constant drip of water that is the process of self-improvement.

Perhaps, some day, the stone will break and dissolve.

Perhaps not.

Either way, the beautiful thing is knowing that, if I drop enough water for long enough, eventually the stone will break…but not caring if it actually does.