New Rhythm

I am only going to write once a week until the book is complete.

In between those posts, I will express the Chung Fu by posting photographs, sharing favorite quotes and putting up links to treasured songs.

Happy Holidays!

11/30/09

As we drove down the turnpike, the rain and sleet melted the snow that had previously dressed the fields and hills in white.

I was very tired, traveling on only one hour of sleep, but I didn't have to drive, and the chatter from my sister, her fiance and my mother kept me awake during the six hour drive to Long Island.

The other thing that kept me awake during the long drive was a recent gift I had received from our friend, Stephen Alcorn.  He is a well-known print artist who sometimes collaborates with authors to make books.  Recently he had completed a book filled with 365 inspiring quotes from his favorite heroes, one for each day of the year.  Each spread listed several quotes on one page and had one of his elegant portraits of a historical icon on the other.  It was the perfect inspiration to come across the night before my journey.  I read every single quote as we waited in traffic in New York City to cross the bridge to Long Island.

The book jacket reads:

The society in which we live has been, and continues to be, inspired by visionaries and heroes from all walks of life: activists and artists, athletes and writers, inventors and explorers, healers and politicians, musicians and moguls.  Our world's visionaries and heroes challenge assumptions, push boundaries, and inspire the ordinary to become extraordinary, thereby shaping our world each and every day.

Here were some of my favorites that seemed extra special to read the night before I embarked on the most challenging endeavor of my life so far:

"I don't know whether I can, but I'll try." -Betsy Ross

"Not all who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien

"The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it's with you all the time." - Alvin Ailey, Jr.

"I am not afraid... I was born to do this." -Joan of Arc

"When you do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world." -George Washington Carver

"I think when you move past your fear and you go after your dreams wholeheartedly, you become free.  Know what I'm saying?  Move past the fear." - LL Cool J

"Hide not your talents.  They for use were made.  What's a sundial in the shade?" - Benjamin Franklin

"Mars is there, waiting to be reached." - Buzz Aldrin

"Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed.  Give me the tightrope." -Edith Wharton

"We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death." -Angela Davis

"I'd like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free and wanted other people to be free." -Rosa Parks

"To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write." -Gertrude Stein

"And moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul... the brave soul.  The soul that dares and defies."  - Kate Chopin

"I was always afraid of dying.  Always.  It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment, and kept me flying respectful of my machine and always alert in the cockpit." - Chuck Yeager

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." - Steve Jobs

"You've got to know your limitations.  I don't know what your limitations are.  I found out what mine were when I was twelve.  I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way." - Johnny Cash

"I worked hard.  Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results." - J.S. Bach

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." - Vincent van Gogh

"The real secret of success is enthusiasm." - Walter Percy Chrysler

"We should be inspired by people... who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong--even in the most difficult circumstances." - Rachel Corrie

"The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness." -Joan Miro

"A problem is a chance to do your best." - Duke Ellington

"The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality." - Florence Nightengale

"America was not built on fear.  America was built on courage, on imagination, and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." - Harry Truman

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric." - Bertrand Russell

"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." - Margaret Fuller

"If now isn't a good time for the truth, I don't see when we'll get to it." - Nikki Giovanni

"The artist is an educator of artists of the future... who are able to understand and in the process of understanding perform unexpected--the best--evolutions."  - Saul Steinberg

"I don't work at being ordinary." - Paul McCartney

"You don't just accidentally show up in the World Series." - Derek Jeter

"Courage is grace under pressure." - Ernest Hemingway

"For mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness." - Thomas Bullfinch

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." - Sir Edmund Hillary

"Enthusiasm towards one's goal lessens the disagreeableness of working toward it." - Thomas Eakins

"I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper." - Steve Martin

"Writing is nothing more than a guided dream." - Jorge Luis Borges

"I carry a notebook with me everywhere... But that's only the first step." - Rita Dove

"Write what you like.  There is no other rule." - O. Henry

"You hit home runs not by chance but by preparation." - Roger Maris

"We all have idols.  Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you're doing it." - B.B. King

"Destiny has a lot to do with it, but so do you.  You have to persevere, you have to insist." - Andrea Bocelli

"Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.  Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or your predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself." - William Faulkner

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." - Oscar Wilde

"Enthusiasm is everything.  It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string." - Pele

"Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so." - Doris Lessing

"He who seeks rest finds boredom.  He who seeks work finds rest." - Dylan Thomas

"What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth." - John Keats

"A page of my journal is like a cake of portable soup.  A little may be diffused into a considerable portion." - James Boswell

"It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea.  I work with it and rely upon it.  It's my partner." - Jonas Salk

"In the depths of winter I finally learned that there within me lay an invincible summer." - Albert Camus

"I delight in what I fear." - Shirley Jackson

"Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements." - Giacomo Puccini

"All men of whatsoever quality they be, who have done anything of excellence, or which may properly resemble excellence, ought, if they are persons of truth and honesty, to describe their life with their own hand." -Benvenuto Cellini

The next day the journey began.

Four Years Ago

Four years ago today my family sat around the dining room table for one more dinner before I set out on my first solo journey in foreign lands.  My sister and her fiance were to be married the following summer, so I gave them an engagement present that I had purchased the day I heard they had gotten engaged.  It was the CD Spiral by Hiromi, because I happened to be at one of her concerts a few hours after I heard the good news.  She signed it especially to them when I told her, which was nice of her because she had a long line of people behind me to sign autographs for.  My sister isn't a huge jazz fan, but her husband is, and he really loved it.  Then we sat around an enormous bonfire outside, even though there was snow all over the ground.  We watched it for a while as a family, but at one point I went inside.  I remember walking back to the fire and feeling ultimate isolation on the globe, and feeling something enormous was out there waiting for me, but also already all around me and well aware of what was going on all the time, and it was spooky to feel that in the chilly night air.

Later I sat at the dining room table with Folke, my soon to be brother-in-law, and talked about the journey waiting for me.  I was nervous about the isolation and loneliness I expected to encounter, but he was very helpful in pointing out and proving through his own example that I would likely meet many people with different backgrounds, insights and points of view who would enrich the experience every step of the way.  He was completely right.  Not only that, but I met more travelers from Germany than any other country, so our conversation really turned out to be more foreshadowing than I realized at the time.  Then Folke pointed out that my father was sitting by the fire alone and that this was a good opportunity for some one on one time.  So I went out to the fire, and I swear it had burned down to the shape of a fiery glowing pyramid.  I don't remember everything we talked about, but I felt very comfortable, like I had already proven myself by living on my own in the city the past three years.  But he had some of his own adventures to share, such as working and camping near the North Pole shortly before I was born, and having to keep an eye out for man-hunting polar bears.

Afterward I was alone in my room and trying not to think of everything I feared about the journey ahead.  I listened to music and read and tried to sleep, but I only slept for one hour before getting up for one more family breakfast and driving down to Long Island to spend a night before my flight to India.

I Give Thanks

World,

I give thanks to you today for life.

I give thanks for letting me be me.  I don’t know why I am me or anything is what it is.  But I know that I enjoy being whoever I am and much of what appears to be part of this world with me.

I give thanks for being able to come home for my first Thanksgiving with my family since 2009, which is coincidentally the last time I had Thanksgiving at home before I began going on journeys.

I give thanks for all of the people in my life: my family, my friends, my acquaintances, my teachers, my heroes, and my wrang-wrang’s (this is a term from a Vonnegut book that means people who steer you away from a life path by reducing it to an absurdity through their own example.)

I give thanks for my health, my mind, my imagination, my knowledge, my wisdom through experience, my creativity, my physical body’s abilities, my heart’s ability to feel love, appreciate beauty, sense humor and usually enjoy what life constantly offers to most everybody.

I give thanks for my wisdom of age and my current youth (still in my 20’s!).

I give thanks for all of the food I have been able to eat, both for values relating to deliciousness and health.  I especially give thanks that my tastes have finally developed so that I have the ability to enjoy and discipline to pursue healthier food choices.

I give thanks for all of the athletic games I have been taught how to play and have fun playing, especially basketball, which has recently re-entered my life (still undefeated in the state of New Jersey after two Monday’s of pick-up games!)

I give thanks for all of the amazing music I have heard, seen performed live and have almost constant access to whenever I want to hear the joy and inspiration.  I give thanks for the portable mp3 player, which has made it possible for life to have more beautiful moments in beautiful places that were previously unattainable.

I give thanks for all of the beautiful diverse places I have been able to see, experience and enjoy.  I give thanks for the many journeys I have been free to pursue the past four years, and all of the challenges they have presented to me to help me grow in body and soul and develop character.

I give thanks for all of the books and movies which have taught me, entertained me, inspired me and enhanced my abilities to understand this world and imagine possible experiences within it.

I give thanks for the many places I have been able to receive shelter where I could be safe, sleep in a comfortable place, store my food and clothing and give me some sense of stability, no matter how many times it has changed in the past year.  I give thanks to the people who have let me stay for free or agreed to let me sublet or lease rooms in houses during the past year.

I give thanks for the teaching jobs I have been given in the past year, both in California and New York, so that I could support myself, learn my language better and interact with humans from various cultures around the world.

I give thanks for all of the jobs I have had in my life to teach me, feed me and develop my strength, intellect, character and ability to work with others.

I give thanks for all of the education I have had to do the same.

I give thanks for my family which has always provided me with an atmosphere that has encouraged learning, achievement, curiosity, understanding, creativity, kindness, compassion, empathy, humor and love.

I give thanks that I was able to live the dream of being in California for a year.

I give thanks that I was able to move back to New York City with minimal financial sacrifice and instability before landing on my feet with a new job.  I give thanks that I have been able to reconnect with so many friends.

I give thanks that I had a free day Saturday to walk around the city for nine straight hours and become reacquainted with many places I used to know over the course of 12 miles of walking:

I give thanks that the muse has inspired me to write more this year than ever before.

I give thanks that there have been challenges that have motivated me to dig deeper into life, find the lessons and sometimes the poetry, and to express them.

I give thanks that people have taken the time to read what I have shared.  I give thanks for those who have given me feedback and/or thanked me for taking the time to share what I had to say.

I give thanks that I live in a country that gives me the right to freely express what I think and imagine without fear of legal retribution, and I give thanks that this freedom exists in many other countries in the world so that I don’t have to feel beholden to this one just because it thought of a basic human right earlier than most others did.

I give thanks that I have been able to learn from so many other cultures.

I give thanks that I have been able to learn and experience so much of my own country.

I give thanks for the stars and moon and sun which shine the light of the divine all the time.

I give thanks for the trees and the bodies of water and the leaves and the grass.

I give thanks for the mountains and canyons and deserts and concrete cityscapes with dazzling bright lights.

I give thanks for the poetry and wonder and magic and mystery.

I give thanks for the love and kindness and truth and connection.

I give thanks for the games and ideas and discussions and activities.

I give thanks for the pieces of the life fabric that can enhance the mind to experience the divine creative imagination through new forms of exaltation, and I give thanks for experiencing many of them safely and joyously despite their legal status within my nation.  I give thanks that I haven’t gotten into trouble or gotten hurt because of any of my experiences.  I give thanks that I am perfectly happy to be sober and induced mind-expansion free when I want to be, including currently, not counting occasional enjoyment of alcohol socially, although the frequency of dependency by those around me is slightly depressing for me, since so many studies are finding that it is the number one contributor to making men unhealthy and unhappy within the grand scheme of their life’s symphony.  I give thanks that this hasn’t happened to me, and that life has shown me that everyone’s life is different and makes us do things and make mistakes and do what we think it takes to enjoy this opportunity to be, and that it truly is a luxury to enjoy the gift of be without needing some kind of enhancing chemical compound consistently, and even more of a gift to enjoy such things when one wants to and then walk away from them or turn them down easily.

I give thanks that I am still alive, and that you are still alive.

I give thanks for the wondrous possibilities of the future. (1161)

I give thanks that I lived in San Francisco, an amazing city, and that I live in New York, a much bigger amazing city.

I give thanks that I am now close to Cambridge and Lake Champlain again.

I am thankful that my neighbor, whom I have never met, lit a bonfire as soon as I got on the water to celebrate my safe return to New York after a six day journey from California.

I am also very thankful that he started playing Springsteen's "Born to Run" on acoustic guitar and singing unexpectedly while I floated peacefully on the water.

I give thanks that my car didn’t break down during the 3700 mile six day journey across America, and I give thanks that it is still running, and that I even have a car to begin with.

I give thanks that I have a canoe to enjoy when I want to, a joy most humans know nothing about.

I give thanks that I was able to see Kings Canyon and the largest tree on Earth, Yosemite National Park and Pyramid Lake this year.

I give thanks that I was able to go to my cousin’s wedding in Mexico and that my aunt helped pay for my stay in my first swanky resort so I could be with them.

I give thanks that I got to visit home in August and move home in October.

I give thanks that I got to see my favorite artist/musician Hiromi play four shows in San Francisco this year, and that she released an amazing new album called MOVE this year.

I give thanks that I was finally able to see Sigur Ros for the first time.

I give thanks that I was able to produce at least 800 pages of web writing this year, and that I am very prepared to complete my first real book, and that I actually know people in the publishing industry who can help me connect to the necessary distribution channels such as agents once I have my completed art project prepared.

I give thanks that I have something unique to contribute to the world.

I give thanks that whenever I forget that or feel the confidence dropping, that another human somewhere else, whoever they are, whether or not I know them, inspires me somehow through their own demonstration of the human spirit's eternal ability to conquer adversity and achieve what appears to be impossible.

I give thanks that the world is so beautifully diverse, complex, organized, mysterious, challenging, peaceful, chaotic, energetic, innovative, industrious, sexual, poetic, scientific, religious, questioning, faithful and endlessly imaginative, and that I may enjoy this journey on the magic spin ball with you all.

Love,

Ben

MUPPET wandered into our yard seventeen years ago