Tag: beauty

  • Chasing ghosts

    Chasing ghosts

    Of the multiple lifetimes that I’ve endured, reality flirts between the beauty that I saw, and the ugly that I experienced. Sanity was relegated to an after thought when what I saw was a vision uniquely experienced by me. Too real to dismiss, but too fantastical to be believed.

    It’s the belief that I need to share it with others that taints the experience. But I often wonder if it’s really a belief, or is it a dictate of nature that I will remain incomplete if my experience remains my own. Is the purpose of life not to share our wonders with others?

    The pervasiveness of ugly has revealed the ugly side of ugly to me in moments when I was distracted by the beauty of a being. My fixation on beauty was never enough to turn their gaze away from the ugly that gripped their lives. Unfulfilled vengeance shreds a soul with the promise of making it whole.

    Fighting the shredding has left me chasing their ghosts of beauty while they invested in the ugly of being. But my ghosts, despite being beyond reach for an embrace, are mine to behold, and mine to court. Offering shards of light into their darkness, teasing them into the light for a few brief, magical moments, before they recede again, the fear of the light turning to darkness echoing the horror of hopes so often destroyed by the ugly of their past.

    This tug of war. This wretch between beauty and pain. If not for the beauty of the ghosts, sublimely serene and mesmerisingly aching with the promise of peace, succumbing to their ugly would have overtaken my tender soul. But tenderness is not formed through frailty. It is the deepest gashes that revealed the tenderness within, without which the hardened crust of my contact with the world would have had me convinced that my ghosts were mere apparitions, and their ugly was the only truth.

    The ghosts of the betrayers have unwittingly gifted me with the vision that they spurned. A vision of wondrous enchantment, seeing the tenderness of their soul, while they focus on the crust. Hope feels like a threat when the lifetimes that nag at my back remind me of the many occasions on which the ghosts were defeated, and the crust grew thicker over the beauty that I courted.

    Until now. Until my latest skirmishes with their darkness revealed an intensity of light so beautifully complete, that my strongest resolve to abandon it proves futile. A new tug of war has been birthed. This time, between my resolve to block out the ghosts and the beauty that they keep revealing in the silent, taunted moments when the world is asleep, and my unfailing desire to surrender to the ghost before I give up my own.

    The end is not near enough, and peace too far away.

  • Exhale. Peace is within reach.

    Exhale. Peace is within reach.

    Wisdom is the re-finding of innocence.

    We’re born innocent, but then life happens.

    Almost imperceptibly, our innocence wanes, and our disappointment in life replaces it.

    Focused on remedying our justified gripes with this world, we lose sight of our innocence that once brought us peace.

    Our life then becomes a struggle to regain that peace, sometimes further contaminating our innocence in that effort.

    Until, one day, quite by chance, we realise that peace lies in reconnecting with our innocence.

    And innocence lies in relinquishing our justified claim for justice or retribution.

    Our path then shifts from striving for peace, and instead, discovering why life happened the way that it did.

    In discovering the why, the disappointment and bitterness recedes, and the space once occupied by innocence becomes available once more.

    Thus, innocence is allowed back in, not because we pursued it, but because we allowed it to return.

    Exhale, beloved. The breath you’ve been holding in, waiting for justice, is better spent exhaling the toxins that cloud your heart.

    Let your heart rise. It knows how. We just need to stop weighing it down with expectations of those whose growth is not aligned with our own.

    Exhale, beloved. A breath of peace awaits you.

  • The beauty of perfection

    The beauty of perfection

    The beauty of perfection escapes the bitter heart.

    Bitterness is the toxin that we hold on to after we experience a betrayal of our trust in another.

    Sometimes that trust is so dear, that we hold on to the poison of its mishandling to protect ourselves from ever being vulnerable to such hurt again.

    Sadly, in doing so, we also deny ourselves the opportunity to experience the beauty that may be the remedy to heal the wound of that unkind betrayal.

    Thus, we anchor ourself in the same past that we wish we could forget, or undo.

    Inevitably, the ones who offer the beauty that we need to breathe fully again are the ones who receive the caustic treatment intended to protect us from such future pain.

    Without realising it, we pay the pain forward, and become part of the cycle that stole our innocence by destroying the innocence of another.

    Break the cycle, beautiful soul. Break the cycle. It will raise your station above the toxic one so that you won’t find yourself looking at the world from their vantage point any longer.

  • Opportune Moments

    Opportune Moments

    Tonight I was reminded of many things. Important things. Calling them things undermines the significance of it, but such is life. It turns the ordinary into elusive extraordinary moments, and turns the defining moments into passing glimpses of what was or what might have been. I was reminded of something I read on the blog of a troubled soul many years ago. It said, quite plainly, that life has been one long longing for a place I’d never been. That’s what tonight reminded me of.

    It reminded me of everything that I cherished and romanticised about, everything that is fragile but resilient, and everything that has felt like it was always meant for someone else. There is a taunting accuracy in driving around with a number plate that reminds me of the divinely ordained destinies that visit us in moments of distraction, and sometimes in moments when we are so deeply immersed in the essence of it that its passing feels akin to the ripping of thorns from the deepest recesses of my gut. But there has always been a glory in being able to experience moments so deeply.

    I look around at the oblivious that flit from moment to moment each time only looking to see if they were noticed or celebrated in that moment, but rarely allowing anything of that moment to affect them in a way that tears away at their defenses. Control is often blamed on the need to be functional or dependable, but it is most often called upon when we would muster the last breath in us to ensure that no one ventures close to the most cherished wounds of our souls. Until moments arise that remind us that control was only ever an illusion. A state that we created by blocking out everything that we could not control, and convinced ourselves that if we believed it hard enough, it would be willed into truth.

    Abandoning control in favour of feeling my humanness is an embrace I savoured a long time ago. I now convey the image of control to others, because what they see is the absence of impact of the fickle ways of others, and assume that it is in fact a control of response on my part. It is not. There is little control that is needed when you recognise the world for the fleeting annoyances that it offers. When a response is not warranted, most interpret it as restraint, simply because such a fickle occasion would have exacted much seething on their part. Not feeling any need to respond requires no control. It simply requires an awareness of the futility that any response will offer.

    Such passion for righting the wrongs that none care much about is easily subdued and eventually abandoned in favour of serving the passion that promises to oil the lamp that shines the light that makes the darkness bearable. There is nothing so bad that there is no good in it. These words have grounded me, and brought me comfort in times of despair by prompting me to recognise that there is more to life than wilting away in the darkness in memory of a past that never blossomed. Life is too short for such indulgences of the ego.

    Everyone talks about how short life is, but never about how short their memory is when it comes to remembering this sobering fact. I recall a movie whose title escapes me, in which Mini Driver screamed at her father after yet another disappointing betrayal of his trust, and complained that he keeps taking her to the top of the mountain only to show her what she can’t have. Perhaps that is what life is about. Dreams and aspirations that drop sparkles on the path for others to find their way, while the road ahead beckons you towards adventure and the promise of all things beautiful. So we willingly drop pieces of the essence of us as we travel along that path, until eventually we are spent. Those of us that are fortunate are met with our final moments at the time that we have exhausted the last shards of what we have to offer the world. The not-so-fortunate find themselves spent before their final breath approaches leaving them scurrying in their twilight moments looking for hope or purpose, finding none, and denying everything that ever tasted like reality, waiting patiently for the taunt of death to finally cease so that death itself may arrive.

    Opportune moments are most often recognised in moments of good fortune. But as always, moments that remind us of the beauty we take for granted, or the companionship that we barely recall are the moments that are most opportune. It defines who we are in provoking the responses of our true selves in its wake, while leaving us bare and vulnerable only to the eyes of those that see beyond the aesthetic. Thankfully they are in short supply so living with such brazenness is possible without attracting the attention of the distracted.

    Tonight, I was reminded that it is not loneliness but isolation that breaks our spirit. Because as they say, you are never alone if you like the one that you are alone with. Isolation is what you feel when you are in a room full of people, all of whom are close to you, but none of whom truly know or appreciate you. Isolation is felt most deeply when you feel the warmth of an embrace so close that it sets your heart racing, but it leaves without being fulfilled leaving your heart breaking.

    There was a time when such expression was reserved for anonymous posts that protected my dignity in the presence of those that have spent much time and effort in trying to prove that some humanity rested within me. Only, the humanity they sought to expose was in fact humiliation they wished to impose. It makes others feel less weak or pathetic when they are able to prove that the strong have moments of weakness just like them. Little do they know that it weakens them even more instead. These are all opportune moments. Moments that define our contribution to the world, and moments that define what we wish to finally accept the world is able to offer us.

    Shame is only felt when the opinions of others matter. When those opinions hold no weight at all, vulnerability and hope become companions that walk side by side, with optimism pretending to be the mascot, and reality being the path on which we travel. Incoherent ramblings offer solace and repose, even though after bleeding at the keyboard the gravity of what was not will once again visit a heavy heart.

    Despite all this, I would have life no other way. Living in half measures, even when surrounded by ingrates and mirages, is no life at all. Fortuitous it may be that I was reminded of a quote from Shakespeare just last night. It said, “Life is but a walking shadow that struts and frets its hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I think he got it right, except for the last part. It signifies everything. That everything only loses its value when we hope for it to be valued by those that don’t recognise the value in us, or sometimes, the value in themselves. Either way, rubbishing the good or chasing the bad is only ever a cry for sympathy. I pray that I will never be met with such weakness in what life remains ahead of me.

  • Slip Sliding Away

    There are far too many mornings when I wake up and find myself searching for a specific inspiration before looking forward to the events or non-events of the day. My inclination to write is dwindling at a pace that is concerning, because it was part of a bigger picture ideal that I held on to for a very long time. ‘Held on to‘ is probably not an accurate way to describe it. It was part of a broader purpose that I willingly subscribed to. Still do, but just not with as much gusto as I did before.

    The time when I expressed without restraint has been replaced by a time when I am measured in favour of the absence of drama. That’s not how I envisaged living my life. I still push the boundaries in my own ways, but not nearly as aggressively as I used to. Perhaps this is why I write less often, and my book has stagnated to the point of gathering digital cobwebs. Resurrecting it has its benefits in that I will once again read an old manuscript with fresh eyes. The downside is that I will feel the burden of revising something that has been endlessly revised already. It’s like solving the same problem over and over and over again. That detracts from the sincerity of the text, the rawness of the expression of emotion, and the clarity of thought that inspired the writing in the first place.

    Not long after waking up with such a vapid mindset I find myself anxious and restless, with the need to achieve something meaningful with the limited time and resources I have at my disposal once again prompting me to drag my butt out of bed and into a course of action that will satisfy the yearning within me to make a difference. To contribute towards a world that I desired for myself, but was unable to achieve it, so I apply myself in the pursuit of creating it for my children, and for the generations to come. The sowing of my seed in the hope that the shade of its tree will shelter and offer a comforting repose to ones that I will never know or meet, and neither will they ever know or meet me.

    I think it is in this anonymous benefit that we feel both part of a greater social cohesiveness, and simultaneously take for granted the social fabric that offers us the comfort and security to be who we are. In other words, if we don’t realise what it is that we get from society, we won’t see reason to pay it forward for others to enjoy the same benefit. In so doing, we end up in the state that too many find themselves in, including me, where we persevere in the establishment of those structures was once available to others, but were eroded to the point of disuse leaving us to establish it once again in the hope that it will one day be available to the ones that come after us.

    The cryptic nature of my thoughts appear to be returning, which in essence is a good thing. It implies that I am once again looking questioningly at the world around me rather than enjoying or despising it at face value. Moments between such phases of inquiry in my life feel lifeless and vacuous. Life becomes an empty shell that demands fulfilment in the form of instant gratification and reckless indulgence when such purpose is lacking. That too often seems to explain a lot of what I see around me. Missed opportunities and broken commitments, not promises. Commitments transcend the fickleness of overt promises. Commitments set the expectation of loyalty, trust, honesty, sincerity, and so much more. A promise is merely a contract made either with conviction, or with a sense of responsibility, but not always made with a sense of true commitment to the agreed outcome.

    Life slips away when we falter on the path that leads to fulfilment of purpose. That faltering arrives in the form of a distracted emphasis on agreements, and obligations, rather than mutual commitment to the spirit of the outcome of such shared aspirations. That slope is slippery. It starts with a need to take care of numero uno when we have good reason to believe that if we don’t, no one will take care of what we need, and quickly descends into a selfish embrace of life when we discover the joy of finally getting what we want before having to worry about what others need. It starts out as doing something for ourselves for a change and quickly becomes the norm when we realise how many others do exactly the same. This collective irresponsibility somehow justifies the abandonment of responsibility to those around us, and soon thereafter we become part of the burdening masses that burden our souls through their self-indulgent destruction of the lives of those that they once committed to protect and uplift.

    Some may interpret this as divorce, some as betrayals of trust, and others as a betrayal of a shared dream. Either way, the betrayal is what lingers, and the selfishness that ensues appears to be the most sane response to an insane world. Our slip into the fabric of that tainted world escapes us when we lose sight of our own purpose that we abandoned in favour of the response to a tainted crowd.

    Life slips away when we stop serving something greater than our selfish needs. Once we find ourselves sliding into that abyss that offers gratification without fulfilment, we grow increasingly closer to embracing the animal within, and abandoning the human without. Courage takes on a new form when we find ourselves clawing our way up that slope to break the slide that many others so willingly embrace. Courage is a rare attribute these days. Populism has killed it.

  • The Best In Me

    I’ve found, and recent experiences have confirmed this to be true as well, that in order to see the true nature of someone, you should demand the best from them. Demand that they be all that you know they have the capacity to be, and you’ll see the conviction or betrayal rise to the surface, often viciously so.

    I’ve been quite distracted recently. That distraction has in many ways confirmed why I sway between wanting to share my thoughts, or write that book, and not wanting to have any part in interacting with people at all. I quietly observe the hypocrisy of so many that polarise towards those that pacify them about their shortcomings, their bad decisions, or their half-hearted efforts to live life while waiting for someone else to come along and contribute the other half. They do this under the guise of compassion and understanding. Both, the pacifier and the pacified. The dishonesty of it all leaves a distinctly bitter after-taste almost literally in my mouth.

    I’ve always found it to be insincere on my part if I agreed with someone that was looking for affirmation about doing something that was either denying them or someone else of a right or benefit that they were capable of providing. It’s as if we live life assuming everything to be optional first, and then only define what is compulsory or obligatory on our part relative to what we believe is a reasonable expectation that others are allowed to have of us. This also implies that we view ourselves through the same tainted lenses. In other words, rights are not rights until we agree that it is so, and then also, only if there is a reciprocal arrangement in place. What’s in it for me has become the mantra of the selfish and the weak.

    Yet the world apparently thrives on it. Far too often I listen to people repeating leadership advice that says that to be influential you must be sure to emphasise what is in it for your target audience otherwise your chances of soliciting their buy-in is significantly reduced. While that may be the reality of it, it also suggests that you become complicit in the cycle of selfishness. I’m obstinate enough to believe that shared convictions are more important than what’s in it for me as a collective perspective. I guess you could also argue that the fact that something is achieved implies that there was conviction behind it to begin with. While that may be true, it doesn’t necessarily imply that such conviction was well-placed.

    If my conviction is focused on self-preservation or self-promotion, then I would act with a conviction that inadvertently erodes the wholesomeness of the society that I belong to. When that selfishness comes full circle and I become a means to an end for someone else from that same societal structure, I complain bitterly about the decay of humanity, forgetting too easily how it is that the same impact I imposed on others left them feeling equally defeated. It seems that such bitter pills are what prompts many to consider the impact that they have on others, because it’s only in moments of defeat or humiliation that we are forced to recognise our weaknesses. Unless you’re so bitter about life that your fixation on the betrayals of others prevents you from seeing your contribution to your current state. Such bitterness always ends in a diseased body and mind, which leads to an untimely and often very unpleasant demise.

    Obstinacy with conviction is what is lacking in this world. I would much rather be surrounded by those that disagree with me because of a genuine sense of conviction in what they hold to be true, rather than to be surrounded by people that agree with me because their affiliation with me benefits their own selfish purposes. I can barely recall anyone demanding me to be more than I am because they saw potential or capability in me that I did not recognise in myself. Fortunately I’ve had little reason to wait for such encouragement although I did find myself wasting a lot of life waiting for others to  catch up. In a way, that has been the most wasteful approach of my life.

    Waiting for others to believe in you implies that you lack conviction in what you see in yourself. While there is merit in testing the veracity of your assumptions and perspectives by sounding it against others, if we’re not careful about what we’re testing for, there’s a good chance that we’ll abandon something valuable because we were looking for the wrong response. Too many test for acceptance rather than soundness of purpose or conviction. We present ideas that have merit to small minds and then abandon those ideas because the value of it was not grasped. We shouldn’t be testing for acceptance or popularity. That is exactly what got this world into the state it is in. As clichéd as it sounds, being part of the crowd only ever maintained the status quo. It’s the individual, the maverick, the relentless pain-in-the-butt that spurs growth, and by implication, growth implies discomfort.

    We need to learn to be comfortable in growth. The only hindrance I can think of that prevents such comfort is the fear of failure. The fear of appearing incompetent in a new setting. That fear is grounded in our belief that others are always competent in what they appear to be doing, but often discover that they were not as competent as we assumed when we engage and apply our minds to the new reality that we were avoiding. It also implies that we assume we’re incompetent by default and therefore incapable of learning, until we find reason to believe that we have sufficient skill or knowledge to start exploring with a fair amount of confidence. Unfortunately we rarely start exploring because we’re waiting for that minimum amount of skill or knowledge to magically appear first, or for someone to believe in us before we try.

    The best of me always manifested in times of trial and intense betrayal when my crutches were snapped away, or my comforts were destroyed. Familiarity often appeared as healthy surrounds, but I only realized how unhealthy it was when I was forced to step outside of those familiar boundaries and became a spectator of my own life. It’s only when we achieve such perspective that we are faced with the daunting choice of whether to prevail, or to succumb. Beyond all this the greatest challenge I continue to face in my life is finding the balance between forging ahead in spite of the lack of conviction from others in what I am passionate about, while simultaneously avoiding the severing of ties. Forging ahead demands conviction and purposeful introspection to guide me, while maintaining ties prevents me from being reckless or ungrateful about the benefit and rights I share with those around me.

    Life is easier if lived in isolation, but it’s less fulfilling. It becomes an incomplete cycle because I believe that our innate nature drives us towards improving the lot of others. The more inclined we are to believe that we are capable of achieving that innate need, the healthier our self-worth, while the opposing belief drives us towards complacency, and self-defeat. The awkward truth is that more often than not people don’t know what they need to improve their current state, but they usually have a very good idea as to what someone else may need. Hence the benefit of perspective when our familiar surrounds are taken away. The point is, if we’re going to wait for others to agree to the change that is needed before we provoke it, we’ll spend a lot of time waiting, and very little time living.

    [My distracted state is evident in the randomness of this train of thought, if it can even qualify as a train!]

  • Sincerely Dishonest

    I’ve always believed that dishonesty is the worst sign of disrespect. I just wish I could dismiss it as pure dishonesty that easily. That burden of awareness can really weigh you down at times like this. Being aware of what drives others to be weak enough to be dishonest makes it nearly impossible to shun them.

    The reality behind the dishonesty is that we’re weak enough to believe that the truth of us will repulse those around us, and so we create alternate realities to court the affection of others, forgetting what a dark web it spins for us. I can only imagine how dreary those quiet moments must be when we are faced with the stark contrast between our life and the life we present to others about ourselves. It can only tear away at your self-respect even more, which is the irony of it all because it was that same low self-worth, or lack of respect for your self, that drove you to create that alternate reality in the first place.

    I’ve often looked at scum bags, really low life schmucks that are blatant about their immoral or underhanded behaviour without any concern for the perceptions of others. I wondered as to whether that is a reflection of confidence or a total disregard for acceptance, or perhaps it’s the total abandon of hope in receiving any such affection which makes the entire purpose of their life a protest against the wholesomeness of that which they’ve been denied.

    Provide those same scum bags with a teaser of hope in being included in something larger than themselves, and withhold it the moment they edge towards it, and you’re likely to see a level of anger and bitterness that drives them to violence. Violence in such cases is the ultimate form of protest while at the same time being the deepest cry for compassion. But the risk of any such compassion being temporary or unfulfilled is so real based on the past betrayals of their lives that they are more likely to spurn it rather than embrace it, because protecting themselves from loss is better than having and losing again. Or so it seems at the time.

    But I started out writing this post with a very different angle to this that played on my mind. I thought that only the most deliberate of lies must reflect disrespect, because you can’t possibly lie to someone that you claim to respect. While I believe there is truth in that, I also believe that a greater truth lies closer to the fact that it implies that your disrespect for yourself is greater than your respect for that person that you claim to respect, and when that dynamic comes into play, you’d rather sacrifice your standing with that person than reveal the ugly that swims around inside of you. Hence the lie that follows.

    Our response to that determines a number of things about us, not least of which is our commitment to the one that lies. Are we invested in raising their level of self-respect more than we are in gaining our rightful respect and appreciation from them, or is our investment in our rights greater? But it’s not that simple, because at some point the investment may cause a denial of rights to others because we have a limited capacity, both emotionally and materially. So we find ourselves in murky waters feeling contaminated by the murk while also feeling undeniably attached to it. Pulling away to save ourselves spawns the burden of guilt or responsibility that goes with such a decision, while remaining tethered weighs us down because of the lack of sweetness from such an investment. Any sweetness that it may hold is on hold until our investment pays off. If ever. And it’s that gamble that gnaws away at us in the quiet moments when we don’t have the distractions of life to save us from its contemplation.

    I am convinced that the liar holds more self-loathing than any loathing we may hold for them. I also think that we spurn their weakness because it can easily spawn similar weaknesses in us when we find ourselves faced with difficult choices. In those difficult moments, it’s easy to justify a dishonest response because ‘everyone’ else does it, so it is entirely understandable. But such justification only provides some peace as long as we’re convinced of its truthfulness. That’s when we choose to surrender our principles in favour of ease, or we grudgingly hold on while also denying the reality of our weakness. That creates the tension within us that drives us to seek distractions around us, eventually leading to chronic ailments of the heart and the body that robs us of our sanity and self-respect as we grow older.

    My thoughts are almost entirely incoherent this morning, so this is my attempt at seeking sanity among the insane. I guess it’s also entirely possible that scum bags are not really scum after all, and that the true scum bags are the ones that betrayed their trust (probably at an early age) that resulted in their loathing for this world, and anyone that represents the warmth that they’ve been denied.

  • The Beauty of Defeat

    Sometimes when things seem like they’re falling apart, they’re actually falling into place. Perspective is most easily lost when we find ourselves lamenting what is slipping away while losing sight of what is heading our way instead. There is no shortage of sentiment or rhetoric regarding the opportunities that dark clouds herald or the silver linings that decorate them, nor is there a shortage of popcorn wisdom that is handed out to pacify the broken hearted. That light at the end of the tunnel is not a train, it’s a sign of life. (I just made that one up!) And so the clichés can go on and on.

    The reality of defeat is closer to the opportunities it unlocks rather than the impact it has when our egos take a beating. In that moment of devastation, it’s easy to see the world as a hostile place that has no room for you, but when the air returns to your lungs, and the skies clear, you suddenly see the gaps that you want to fill. The voids that are waiting for your unique contribution, failing which they will remain empty forever. But those voids, those gaps, only become visible again when you return to what you’re passionate about.

    I don’t think there is a single soul alive that didn’t at some point believe they could change the world. How we choose to define that world and what we want to change about it is directly related to how much we believe in our ability to influence it. The greater that belief, the bigger our world. It’s sad though to see so many make others their world instead of embracing the world of others. You know, those people whose existence is defined by the admiration and affection of another? They’re the ones that taste true defeat, not because it is a romantic tragedy, but because they’ve defeated themselves long before defeat visited them. But even in that defeat there is beauty.

    Beauty is not what we see around us, it’s what we hold within. It’s that internal peace that draws our attention to the beauties that abound, or else all we’ll see are representations of what we don’t deserve, or at least what we believe we don’t deserve. When we fail to accept ourselves, to respect the struggles we face or the resilience we’ve demonstrated, and more than these, when we fail to see the true potential of the value we can offer this world, we’ll be left feeling subdued and deprived. To fill that void of self-worth, we court the acceptance of others. We define ourselves by their validations and we convince ourselves that the way they see us is truly who we are. The moment all that is taken away, we’re left bare and vulnerable. In that moment of apparent defeat, we’re finally forced to see ourselves and others for the reality we’ve been denying for so long. In that is the sweetness of defeat.

    Those moments that force us to recalibrate, re-evaluate, or simply to resurrect our fading convictions are the moments that define our appreciation for beauty, for peace, and most importantly, for balance. Without that defeat our inclination to take for granted that which fills the gaps in our lives increases. The goodwill of others is seen as rights, and their willing contribution is assumed to be them just doing their bit to justify their presence in your life. That’s the haughtiness of success.

    Defeat is not truly defeat. It’s a moment of pause. It’s a reality check. It’s a forced review of what we incorrectly assumed, and what we took for granted. That’s when things fall into place. That’s when perspective is tempered with reality, and the alignment between purpose, conviction, and ability are strongest. All it needs is a healthy embrace of who you are, and who you’re not. Unfortunately, in such a distracted world, we tend to know more about others than we know about ourselves, which makes it inevitable that we’re more likely to feel denied than we are to feel blessed. Perhaps that is the root of the violence and aggression we see in the world. Too many demanding significance and over compensating for it with wealth and power, while still feeling incomplete.

    Those voids. Focus on those voids, and the rest will fall into place as a matter of natural consequence. Alas, that requires trust. And so begins another vicious cycle of self-deprecation.