Everything I loved about you
Is what I’ve used
To rebuild me
What used to be pieces
Of you
Used to complete me
Have become pieces
By you
Built into me
By leaving me in pieces
…Bless you
I’ve reengineered a more—
Complete me.
P.s. You can read my other poems here.
Gifting is one of the core principles at Burning Man.
The idea is that everybody brings more than they need so that each participant can practice decommodification (another core principle) and can devote themselves to unconditional gift giving.
Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value—which can be a foreign concept to grasp in our transactionary world. In fact, those who try and pay, barter, or otherwise offer a return for a gift miss the point entirely—the point is to have an emotional exchange (more on that here).
That said, one of the best gifts I received from Burning Man didn’t come from Burning Man—and I received some incredible, breath-taking gifts.
…The best gift I received came from those who made it possible for me to go TO Burning Man.
Specifically, my mom who house and dog sat for me for the entire duration of my trip and my coworkers who stepped up and helped run the martial arts school for me while I was completely off grid.
The gift they provided was one I’ll truly never forget: the experience as a whole.
…And this is one of the greatest gifts we can offer one another.
Not only the gift of experiences shared, but those unshared.
The gift of allowing other people the freedom to travel, adventure, and explore all that this life has to offer—even if (especially if) that means staying back and covering for them while they’re gone. Not because we don’t want to go, but because in allowing them to go, we gift them wings—and nothing should feel better than watching them fly.
I live around the corner from a large church.
Every now and again I’ll turn the corner in my car—usually lost in thought thinking about my “problems” and how I might solve them—and see a hearse parked in front with a few people dressed in suits and black dresses surrounding it.
It’s a jolting reminder that, regardless of where you are on your journey, it’s not over.
As hard as things might be, as scary as the future might appear, as painful as the past might feel… so long as there is still breath and beat in your body… let there, too, be life.
And by life I don’t mean existence… I mean life. Time spent doing all of the things the person in that hearse maybe wish they were able to do in the final few days of their life.
…It’s now or never, y’all.
Let’s journey each day like we mean it.
I got an email from a writer I follow online titled: How to create 1,000 content ideas in 11 minutes.
With the first line revealing the secret as: “…look no further than ChatGPT.”
And while I have no doubt that this is possible and true… the thought of 1,000 content ideas produced in a matter of minutes for me to then process gives me ANXIETY.
Sure, I know I don’t have to read through and process them all—but, why create them then?
If there’s anything I’ve learned from writing 1,200+ days in a row now… it’s that we don’t need 1,200 ideas to write about right now. Or in 11 minutes for that matter.
What we need is just one idea to focus on just for today.
And the best way, from my experience, to come up with that idea isn’t to default to ChatGPT—it’s to look within and spend a good chunk of time in uncomfortable quietness / boredom.
While it’s true that ChatGPT gets better the more we use it (and we at understanding how to use it), what also gets better the more we use it is… get this… our imagination.
…And imagination seems to be in a proportional decline as ChatGPT usage continues to spike.
But, it doesn’t have to be that way for us.
Time spent in creative self-expression is time never wasted.
In those moments when we’re spreading paint, choreographing movement, wrestling with words, etc… we’re staking claim to the existence that is uniquely our own.
…Consider for a moment all of the things you uniquely created since being born.
Could anyone else have created those things in the exact same ways? Surely not. And for something to spontaneously arise from within based on the unique DNA, experiences, and perspectives of the creator—is something, by definition, incredibly special. What a shame to be born a unique manifestation of life and to rarely express it!
It’s with this in mind that I encourage you to spend more time in creative endeavors.
Not only will you never regret it, but you’ll leave behind the rightful legacy that is uniquely your own. A path of metaphorical footsteps that, with each creation another imprint in the earth formed. Proving your existence and ultimately leaving behind a path composed of colors, movements, and paragraphs that we—all of those who come after—may absorb and use to influence the next creative expressions of our own.
Leaving behind a legacy not only of footprints in the metaphorical earth, but a legacy of footprints along the metaphorical hearts of all those who your creations leave an imprint on.
We write when we’re emotionally “drunk” because we can reference, in real-time, highly potent human emotions. Emotions that each present as their own color that we get to dab and use in the painting of our life.
Writing when we’re only feeling one kind of emotion leads to a very one-colored painting. Writing our way through all of the emotions is how we welcome the full color spectrum onto our canvas.
But, we also write when we’re emotionally “sober” because we can edit or re-work any of the “drunken” brushstrokes we might’ve made with a calm, clear mind. A mind that sees the whole canvas and not the singular brushstrokes. A mind that sees how the various colors interact and if any of it needs to be adjusted. A mind that can bring harmony to all of the colors that present in our masterpiece.
…If we want to continue writing (and painting) the most raw, accurate, compelling story (masterpiece) possible, we should do so both when we are deep in the midst of our most potently raw, human states and when we’re crystal clear and able to shape those expressive bursts into accurate and compelling pieces.
…In other words, it’s always a good time to write.
Don’t let the “drunken,” fiery bursts of passion or mundanity of everyday “sobriety” intimidate or dissuade you.
It all serves a purpose.
…We just have to keep showing up to the canvas to figure out what purpose today’s brushstrokes might serve.
P.s. I sip on coffee while I write these. If you enjoy these posts, you can support my future work by supplying me with my next cup of joe here :)
Instead of saying “I’m in a bad mood,” consider saying, “I have some emotions I’m working through.”
We are never just one emotion; never just one mood at any given point in time.
We are all of the moods all of the time.
It just so happens that, like the dancing tide that rises and falls as the moon closes in and retreats from the earth, so too do our various moods rise and fall as various life events (past, present, and future) close in and retreat from our conscious and unconscious mind.
Sometimes it’s obvious why we’re experiencing “bad mood” emotions.
…And sometimes it definitely isn’t.
The key is in not identifying with any one particular emotion so as not to allow it to drown out all of the other emotions.
When we say “I am…” we are referencing all of ourselves. When we say “I have some emotions I’m working through…” we are referencing part of ourselves. And we’re giving space for the other parts (emotions) to rise and fall on their own accord—while simultaneously not flooding the “bad mood” emotions throughout the entirety of our body.
When we give all of our emotions the space they need to rise and fall without clasping or repulsing… we, like the tide to the earth, allow our bodies to breathe: to rise and to fall; to take in and to let out; to welcome and to bid farewell to… the entirety of what makes us human.
P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.