Every once in a long while, I get a glimpse behind the curtain.

It smells a bit like the first whiff of lilacs in spring. It looks a bit like a sliver of sunshine from a door inched open from darkness. It feels like featherweight joy. The casual, quotidian joy of what life could be if I truly recognized it as the experiment it is, a world in which the title I carry, the job I go to, the investment I make or house I buy has no more significance than the paper on which those accumulations are recorded. A world in which the only real consequences lie in how my actions resonate to my fellow Earthlings, human or other. A world in which there is no boredom, no routine, no apathy, but perpetual recognition of the everyday glory of engaging with it as a human being in this moment.

Of course I can apply for that out-of-my-league job or connect with that out-of-my-league person because the leagues are an illusion, They’re part of a bullshit, manufactured hierarchy intended to keep us isolated from one another so we don’t recognize our interdependence and the shared goals of love, happiness, and peace that would allow us to stand against any autocratic, selfish, destructive entity.

Failure is a lie because it implies an end state, a state of perfection not reached, as opposed to an experiment, Every time something doesn’t turn out as expected, that should be a celebration of change and education and novelty. Success is okay, but it carries the delusion not only of achievement, but of Arrival – of an ending. Failure reminds us that we just fucking around trying to get our bearings here, people in a world that is (in my country) constantly mocking, denigrating, obscuring, and flat out denying the truth that there is another option, a more joyful path, a lighter way to live. Sometimes I can see that path, when the fog clears.

And then sometimes I’m burdened with the pointlessness of existence, a heart-heaviness that makes everything seem useless, every meaningful action impossible: a trap of swampy ick that I know I will ideally just acknowledge, not give it unearned importance or attach any other unpleasant emotions to it, but which instead I often wind up waiting out, holding on til bedtime and hoping the next day will be springier, sunnier, better. I will have moments of thinking I am in much worse shape than I thought, that maybe the miasma of loathing is thicker, deeper, more insidious than I choose to acknowledge, that this is not a moment, but a step down to a pit of ever-increasing bleakness.

And then the normal comes back, and sometimes the special.

The brain is a terrible therapist. Much better the body. Sit. Recognize. Breathe. Carry on. This moment doesn’t need a story or a prognostication. It just needs to Be, with the inevitability of change as it’s lowkey mascot.

You thought this was going to be all about awakening and awesomeness, didn’t you? Well, SO DID I. Once again, things have not turned out as I had hoped or expected. C’est la vie.

Anyway, that’s my Sunday. How are you?