This weekend I saw six shows by the most fun, talented, sophisticated, versatile, energetic and moving musician in the world, the one and only Uehara Hiromi.

I met new people at each show, went to one show with a friend, walked through Central Park and Strawberry Fields with friends who are moving to the city next month, saw and surprised one of my best friends since kindergarten on the subway after one of the shows, was seen and surprised by three of my students in Washington Square Park after the show the next night, and witnessed many happy people wearing rainbows on the train home last night.

I was very tired this morning, but I have to do what I have to do.  We talked about education in the first class.  Your entire life is learning, but even so, I explained public schools and universities.  Usually you study at a university for four years.

Speaking of which, I made it home from my first gigantic journey on this same day, four years ago.

I thought I was finished, but there were many adventures, challenges and treasures waiting for me.

Wow, someone seriously just set off some fireworks...

Happy because of Hiromi shows

Must work now though

Will write in the afternoon

More

            If you want to know where you’re headed, it helps to know where you came from.

            Therefore, if you want to know where I’m taking you, you should probably know where I’ve been.

            The journey I see stretched out before me began on an island at the edge of an enormous ocean of water.  They named it Long Island.   People tell me I was born in a place named Smithtown.  I believe them.  They showed me the piece of paper that says so.  “Smith” is the most common name in America.  It’s not my name, but it showed me that there were already plenty of other people like me who already desired and perhaps even received the treasures of life whose existence I had yet to even believe.  Although my ancestors had been on this land for several hundred years by the time I came around, and the experiences of forests, farmland, meadows and marshes supposedly swam in the arteries of my family’s tree, most of the terrain had been conquered by strip malls and chain restaurants long before I joined the scene.

            Everywhere around there is a land called the “suburbs.”  In other words, I began the journey in a land of reasonably enjoyable and comfortable existence, the style of which has spread around the country and the world, and has been an enormous part of the one poem since the world almost ended itself about seventy years back.  Luckily the world didn’t end itself, and now people live in many types of places.  One of them is for people who want to live close to each other and everything that everyone else has access to, but maybe with a little space to grow your own grass, allow a tree and we to breathe, and sit in your own space without anything affecting your enjoyment of the best world you know.

              The father of my father, that is, one of my two grandfather's, helped build the first suburbs, named Levittown.  After World War II people were feeling good and decided to spend their time making babies, but then they realized they had to raise these babies in a new society, so they started building homes and highways so people could still be connected with mass gatherings of humans (for better or worse) called cities without actually living in them.  Everyone could have their own little space and be safe, without pollution and crime and unknown neighbors.  After all, the world had almost ended, and most of humanity had a place to be with their family.  Even sweeter, you could enjoy the gifts of a green lawn, still plenty of celestial sea spread as bright stars in the sky of your suburb, the mix between city and country, the homes of humanity.  And all the comforting conveniences of cutting edge technology.  Electric refrigerators to keep your food safe so you can keep living and tasting deliciousness, TV’s so you can see the imagination and action of much of humanity, in an easy chair where you can lounge and enjoy performances from all your favorite movie, sports and TV celebrities, dishwashers to keep your eating places clean, and affordable racing places to be that can move you wherever you want to see the variety of ways to be in homes of the brave and lands of the free, with courage, poetry, mystery and artistry.

            American hero, poet and fellow native Long Islander Walt Whitman, the man who sang about the open road, probably wasn’t talking about going on a mystic promenade to the mall such as the one they named after him near his hometown, although mall is defined as a space made available for a public promenade.  I’m sure if the most famous poet in American history were forced to go, he would have made the best of it, tuned into the unseen he knew was there, and recognized our shopping adventure as the “journey work of the stars.”  Especially if we were there to buy his book.  After all, it’s all one poem, and poetry's just one nutrient.  We've gotta eat.  And there are still little leaves of grass on the tiny lawns occupying the small strips separating asphalt parking spaces while we walk through affordable gateways to more places to see.

              Ah, the magical poetry of suburban Long Island.  I can see the rest of the world rolling its eyes, but when I look at this life as a prize, I actually feel blessed to be from there, even though I’m still glad I got out of there.  Relatively speaking, I’m from the very average suburbs.  As I said, one of my grandfather’s grew up there, and he helped build the first suburbs.  Both he and my other grandfather (from way upstate near Canada) fought that big war that almost ended all life everywhere on the magic flying ball.  Then he came home and tried to make a good life for his family while enjoying his life, helping people and having the occasional adventure in nature or on the job.  Between that and the war, he saw a lot of gruesome sights.  But he raised his children well.  Speaking of which, my father didn’t fight in any wars, thankfully.  But he did get out on many adventures in the wild, including working up near the North Pole around the time I was born.  He’s definitely been through his rites of passage as an adult.  I’m not interested in any violent wars either, so I’m making my own rite of passage.  I think that’s what this is supposed to be.  I don’t know exactly where it goes or what it will entail, but that’s what it is.  There’s an enormous real world out there with a lot going on, and you can’t control or change all of it, and you don’t have to control or change any of it.  But you can learn something about what’s inside of you by embracing what’s new.  Then, if you show it, the universe will help you grow it.

            Speaking of growing, after eleven years of growing up in normal average America, my family moved to upstate New York.  We moved to the true country side, north of the New York State capital of Albany, where my dad had just been assigned to work.  We lived in Washington County, named after the man on the most circulated piece of art and paper in the world.  He was the first president of our country, and the leader of the rebel forces in the fight for independence against our parents, my ancestors, the tea-loving peoples of the magical musical language island of England.  Our new home was right next to Vermont and not far from Massachusetts, both of which are in New England.  My country is a young country, but if you want a few hundred years, the wise ways of the Iroquois, and the beginning of European American history, look into the Northeast.  People had been giving thanks for food and friendship for centuries in that extreme country with every season experienced to its utmost degree.

            It was strange adjusting to the country, not being able to see our neighbors and so on, but by the time I was ready to go to college, I definitely felt more like a country boy than a suburbanite.  Any time I think of home, I feel very lucky.

            When I became a young adult I moved to central New York to go to college.  Then I moved to New York City to do my best to be a human who got the most out of life, however unconventional my methods and pathways with stories might seem.  Usually, in my experience, the best treasures and lessons in life are often uncovered in the strangest ways with the best stories.  The more unique, creative and imaginative, the better for everybody.  Love.  Love?  Love... Love!  You have to feel, express, breathe, share, and receive, and if love does find its way to you, you will be prepared to believe.

            When I had arrived in the self-proclaimed capital of the world, I was a young twenty something, fresh out of school, learning to play the fool in the real world with more mysterious rules.  Even when I started in the city, my favorite joys were exploring the world around me, listening to music, reading books, taking photographs, making notes when ideas and observations came to mind, and then occasionally exercising my creativity by writing about whatever stirred those mysterious synapses inside of me.  I continued all three hobbies through my three years in the city, but by the time I was thinking about going on a journey, I had been feeding on wisdom, knowledge, imagination and creativity with an intensity that had never previously been thought possible by me.

            Education had taught me that other smart people had learned that the benefits of human kind came from expressing one's mind.  Whether, artistic, material or intellectual, the greatest steps in all of life serve experience through communication of a vibration in the universal imagination.  That’s the way of creation.  Everything’s tuned in through its own station.  And those communications increase and speed up peace by allowing release of fearful mind disease, because the more you know the more your courage grows and you accept the overall flow of the reality show.

            We began as one life, but somewhere in there we got adventurous and started exploring.  The visible world wide web was still a few hundreds of thousands of years away.  So we became separated by physical boundaries in the landscape: oceans, mountains, deserts, forests, jungles, seas and rivers.  Our history is the story of overcoming those experiential barriers and evolving the potential of universal experience through sharing our expressions of inner truth.  It all starts with movement carrying awareness to higher experiences of quality.  Its arbiters are heroes, which are humans who wake up and move their bodies and minds through time to explore and apply the imagination of the divine.   These heroes are anyone at any time in their lives who are fortunate enough to seize the opportunity life provides to explore its unknown mysteries, though they extend to infinity.  See what you see, be what you’ll be, for being free is up to thee.

             One key to my journey toward feeling free was to go to the New York Public Library and read everything I could read.  Soon after I successfully completed university, I started realizing that my brain was a beautiful key to the mystery, and was here for much more than earning me some numeric test score intended to give some ever fleeting temporary form of happy.  I’d been given the gift of understanding, and seeing connections that many others did not see.  Comparisons of human existence are unnecessary and impossible.  I was, am and will be the same as everybody.  I do what I do to feel alive and make do.  I have always been humbled by the sheer vastness of intelligence beyond my existence and comprehension exemplified by other humans throughout all time, coming from the beauty of a universal mind that couldn’t possibly be only mine.  But whatever was in anyone else was also in me, and I was learning to let it shine.  So I read books.  I read the stories of life.  I absorbed imagination and knowledge.  I filtered whatever I learned through the lens of my reality, to find relevance in my day to day experience.  I coupled that with an intense obsession with the elegant experience of eclectic music, and soon the synchronicity started to show itself in full force.  Everything was adding up, but I didn’t know as to what.  One thing I knew was true after three years referring to NYC as “here” was that I had to face some fear and go places that were far from near.

            The best group of papered trees to inspire me was a book that taught me about the human tradition of the “hero journey,” Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss.  I trusted this man with my soul’s imagination and experiential guidance because he had the reputation among humans as the most knowledgeable and wise in the stories of mankind.  That is to say, he knew his way around humanity’s mythology, its explanations for how to live great lives through metaphors and poetry in ways that bring us the bliss of being personally.  He knew it all, from Hindus to Mayans to the Middle East to Woodstock to Star Wars.  Amongst all those ideas, he said that the most common story is the hero journey: leaving the known for the unknown, either because you’re uncomfortable where you are and want to escape, or because you feel a call to adventure in some foreign world, a place beyond your familiar sphere of experience.  He told me everything to expect, from the tests, to the realizations, to what to do afterward when the journey is over and you return to the world you knew before, which will obviously be different from how you remember it.  You face challenges, read the signs, accept aid from magic helpers, experience low moments right before transformative treasures, and bring those treasures back to society for the greater fun of everyone.

            Even so, you have to do more than just go.  You have to find a way to express this unknown which has become familiar to you through your unique adventure and convince society that it needs this new truth you have learned, because it doesn’t know that it needs what you have to give.  Don’t worry.  This is the story of all advancement.  As much as you might fear the status quo or the decline of human intelligence, there are hearts feeding love to millions and millions of hearts, and they get turned on by innovation, imagination, and, when given the chance to dance, some romance.

            The adventure I’m in took me to New York City for three years.  That in itself was the story of a journey, but after a while I started to realize that New York City, for all it’s worth, is inherently not like the rest of the world because it is only one place.  It may be a mix of everything into tall buildings, but it is still one city in one country.  I decided that if I wanted to have the best life I could, I’d have to love life somewhere beyond that specific city.

            At the beginning of 2009, the ultimate year of my generation’s decade, I became inspired to find a deeper, more diverse and challenging experience of the world than I had previously dared to pursue.  I wanted to connect to the world in a better way, and use the life given to me in the best possible way, every day.  Until then, I had been a pretty privileged middle class American with a few of those favored perks that come from life being good to you amidst all the challenges of surviving and thriving, because that’s what life needs people to do.

           What’s next?

            I don’t know, but by looking at where I’ve been, I might get a good idea that wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t tried to apply my imagination to this real creation tuning in through my particular personal universal station.  The less I try to pin down the future, the more I open myself up to experiences where I will be forced to raise my quality as a human being.  I learn how to adapt and improvise using my mental, emotional and intuitive powers growing inside to figure out the most excellent path through this ride, rolling around this map of life that’s everywhere around us and inside us.  Wherever and whatever you go through, I hope great things happen for you.

            Great.  It’s agreed.  We’re going to have a joyful, creative, and wondrous adventure filled with physical pleasure, mental treasure and mysterious awe beyond measure.  There will be challenges to give you the joy of living life through feats which make your heart beat and your blood flow to your head with your feet so you can grow with life.  Ain’t that sweet?  The world’s love is always and never and everywhere complete.  And there will be both physical and mental pain to make you appear to go just enough insane until you see the gain and move to a higher quality “sane.”  Appreciate your soul/brain, or whichever word makes you happy, and explore yourself, this world, more deeply.

            I see songs, poetry, and landscapes of beauty to free the love inside of me...

Intro

            Hi!

            How are you?

           

            Where are you?

I will tell you.

You’re in a very special place.

Look around you.

Maybe it appears special to you, and maybe it does not.  I don’t know what you call this place you’re in, but I do know where you are.  You’re on a magic flying ball spinning around a brightly shining star.  I imagine you already knew that.  But you might not think about it very much, probably because people aren’t rewarding you with pleasure and love you can see.  Still, it’s true.

            I say this place is special because it’s floating on invisible something, in invisible something, moved by invisible mystery something, all while life goes on with its endless scenes of magic and mystery, passion and history, poetry and science and universal reliance on spaces and times fused by a storyteller who rhymes.

           

            You can find everything you want in this place.  If you are brave enough to explore in the name of being alive more, you may find beauty and trust, and love and lust, and times when choosing is a must.  There is the ecstasy of knowing your only cosmic responsibility is to be.  Yet there is also ultimate joy that can only be received after quality tasks have been achieved.  The time for adventurous fun is different for everyone.  But when the message is received, be ready to believe that this magic spinning flying ball is begging you to live the journey of cosmic poetry.  This voyage will bring you to dignified, electric and chaotic cities filled with glorious splendor and squalid misery.  You will also see peaceful places in the country, where you can perceive the beauty of the leaves and the infinite glory of the stars shining clearly above the trees.  During this journey you do not always have to be right, or feel happy, or even be free, peaceful or genki (which is Japanese for “healthy and happy”).  But as long as you breathe, why not explore more of this mysterious poem you weave?  You just might find you have a few aces you didn’t even know were up your sleeve…

           

            The best U can do is decide what to do with the life that is offered U with each present clue, and go from there to face your bear, whatever U have been given by the living giving.  As our moments come together, we see strong threads of beauty, pathways through poetry, and begin to conduct a symphony composed by the life within oui

           

            The treasured rewards for your participation in creation are enthusiasm, courage through risk for love, and the incredible adventure of being alive.  If you rise to higher levels, you will be lucky enough to win an intuitive trust in a poetic language which moves your world where and when and how this must.  U look through our eyes, bathing our I’s with this beautiful prize.

It’s a glorious and scary world, but there are good people everywhere you go in the universe show.  Suns do shine, and water does flow, and humans do love, and life does grow.

As you know, it usually helps to know more, but sometimes trusting the surprise is best and most wise.  You can do this by loving the world so much that you trust it will help you through the quest by taking care of the rest.  Of course, you must do your best on whatever you have chosen as your test.

           

            Once I went on a quest.  I was very lucky to go on this quest, and even luckier to have survived and thrived.  Thank you, universe.  I imagined all sorts of things that could have happened, but here I am, telling this story to reflect your world’s glory.

           

            In the past four years I have been fortunate to have been able to choose to energize my existence with, embark on, and enjoy a series of journeys, adventures and voyages around many parts of the world, including the land of my birth.

           

            All journeys begin when life begins, and the purpose of a journey is to renew life.  Make it new again.  My journey into this world began in a large building called a hospital.  When I was around long enough to learn and understand some of the world, I was told hospitals were places where everybody, including me, began their destiny in the galaxy.  I was also told that I didn’t want to go back, because that would mean there would be something wrong with me, or even that I would be leaving this only experience I know, which everyone told me is called “life.”  I think even back then the lesson was clear.  Life is a circle.  You’re going to end up where you started, so you might as well fit in as much in between as you can do, and make that circle’s arc as wide and smiley as possible while you’re here, wherever here is compared to there, if there is a there beyond this air.  I know now that “life” is everywhere.  What that word exactly means, well, how could I possibly care?  At some point you have to accept you don’t know and take a dare and face that bear of a question that is always there.  It’s only fair.  Even so, don’t take this “life” for granted, because although it appears to be everywhere, the unique life that you enjoy is extremely rare, so you should definitely care.

           

            There are many ways to show you care.  There is beauty all around you.  Feel free to stare, and if you find something new, please, do share.

           

            The best is to express what’s going on inside, which, though it may be invisible, is very, very, very alive.  If you want that alive to thrive, first you must survive.  Luckily for you, this universe, or “one verse,” provides plenty of poetic clues as to what you can, should and will do.  Help it guide you through by listening, looking, hearing and seeing, and soon you’ll be freeing the excellence of being.

           

            The ball makes circles around this enormous bright light which is actually a ball of fire carrying our soular system wherever it may desire.  I suppose that’s up to the forces on higher, galactic central, the universe, whatever it is that lights the fire of grace in space.  But when it comes to this soular system, it’s the ace, selflessly flowing light, heat, and life to this place.

           

            The ball where I was born and have been this whole time is mostly covered in beautiful blue, but the artist completes this scene with glorious green.

           

            There are many groups of people in places with words called names, and throughout life they have changed.  Right now, the range is from 190-206, depending on who you ask, which is kind of strange.

           

            My land’s name is five words:  The United States of America.  It has nicknames too.  America.  The United States.  The U.S.  The States.  The USA.  The US of A.  The Union.  US.  We’re a club of humans that share many aspects of life.  We have the same people taking our money and telling us what to do, and weapons entrusted to people controlled by the first people, all in service of assuring that many (but not all) members of our club get to enjoy their life as much as possible, that is, as possible as it is for humans to assure how things are amongst these millions of galaxies with gazillions of stars.

           

            There’s a lot of life on this ball, but the ones who have a chance to love it the most are humans, i.e., you and me.  And the people who have the best lives are the ones who find a way to get some pay for doing the work play which they love each day.

            I had only been riding the magic flying ball for five circles around the star when I decided I am a writer, story teller, and creative adventurer with an opportunity to be a unique sensation of the universal imagination.

            It’s beautiful and true that I can make this book to express Chung Fu to you and give you clues about what you’re supposed to do to make do and get through the eternal U, whoever you are or whatever you do.  Even though I’m writing this at a place in time and space that has been laced with some sort of number language date, I might as well be talking to you in person right now, face to face.

            If you were with me right now, let’s say, by a fire alongside a field beneath a row of trees, and the suns were all shining gloriously in the beautiful dark mysterious celestial sea, reflecting the harmony of the cosmic symphony, just for you and me and the infinity of divinity, I would tell a story about a journey that began a long time ago in a distant land of mystery, a place, which, to get there, you must traverse the deserts, mountains, jungles, cities and seas.

            When I am finished, I suggest you go celebrate the universal love poetry which makes you brave, free, awed by the mystery and supremely genki.

            Go be free, on behalf of everybody.

           

            Love what you see, especially the beauty, even when it appears not to be.

           

            Rest assured.  There is providential poetry in everything you see.

           

            Of course, it’s more than a word such as poetry.  This is also about the feeling that vibrates intensely in every part of your be.  My favorite path to this feeling is awe, an intense wondrous energy, such as that special feeling you get when you’re alone in the streets, the forest, the water or the stars, and the wind creates a breeze which happens to be the keys to your joyful destinies, and then you roll with the tide and go inside.  Then the right song comes along to turn you on, and that’s when your love smiles at you to help you pull through and make do that which draws your love closer to you and the deeper experience of this magic you share and breathe with U…

            Naturally, you can’t just fall for every pretty person who sends you a smile or a thumb’s up.  That’s part of the poetry.  That’s why the one who does smile at you in the right way is so special to begin with.  That’s why you need the clearest choices of character which bring you the precise peace that puts your mind at ease so you may live the life you love.  But it doesn’t end there.  Sometimes you need something more than humans can offer, if only to move away just enough to get a newer viewpoint which makes you appreciate and communicate at a higher level.  That’s when you get out there and start noticing the parts of your world you never noticed before.  The ones you took for granted.  It’s all out there for you to pick apart and recreate as art from your own heart.  If you’re having trouble at the start, you can show off your best attempts at being smart simply by playing with your brain, and sharing everything you find, no matter how insane.  But this is a beginning stage, and as you advance with age, you learn that if you want to get anything done or find anything you truly desire with clear focus from the parts of you that matter, then you’re going to have to flow your senses into a system where you can choose the best moves to put your personal poetry into action, playing your role in the one poem journey of everybody, the goal being now, the joy us wow.

Three Superlative Shows!

Wow

Sleepy time now

14

On Thursday morning I woke up after five hours of sleep, a persistent pattern these days.

When I got to work, my first task was to lead a discussion on the role of special interest groups and lobbyists in American politics.  Usually we can turn unpleasant topics into good discussions, but something about the inertia of the political system kept us from getting excited to start the day.

The next class is usually a little more energetic, especially because there's this young kid from Colombia who's really psyched about the World Cup.  He'd hurt his arm the day before, though, so he was very quiet during class.

The third one involved a discussion about reducing crime and the morality of capital punishment.  A light day, indeed.

After that I taught a two hour private class with two older Brazilian women who are on more of the beginner side of the learning spectrum.  They're lovely, but the fourth class of the day moves very slowly.

By the time I get home I am usually in dire need of a nap and some food, since I only have five minute breaks between 9 am and 3 pm.  Even so, it's six straight hours of work, so although expenses remain simple by western developed standards, I don't have to worry so much about money.  I'm like most people when it comes to money: I don't worship it, but I don't like wasting energy worrying about it, which, as I've learned in the past six months, can really take a lot out of you.

At 6:30 I had a new private lesson with an older Spanish woman.  She really loves jazz music and saxophones, and says that any time she hears Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," she has to sit down, wherever she is.

Immediately after that I began the two hour lesson with my advanced group, making it six different classes, ability levels and topics during one day, most of which is spent standing, speaking, listening, correcting and literal thinking on my feet.  It makes me tired, but they say that sitting down too much isn't good for you, so I feel lucky that I have a job that allows me to stand and interact with people.  As much energy as I expend, I draw on the energy of the students too.

I concluded the teaching day by discussing the role of fear in society and how to overcome it.  A man in the textbook had sold his possessions on e-bay and then visited everyone he had sold them to.  Apparently the stories behind the materials were more important than the materials themselves.  Then we talked about the impact of art, a perfect lead-in to my final activity of the day.

Afterward I rode the train to West 3rd street, where I waited in line for a Hiromi show.  The people ahead of me appeared to be foreign tourists.  They looked a little bit out of place at a jazz club.  I'm not sure, but something about their manner of speaking and their clothes gave me that impression.

When they let me inside I was seated at a table behind the piano, just like the first time I saw a Hiromi show!  The previous night I'd sat parallel to the piano, allowing me to see the entire trio and all of Hiromi's contagiously ecstatic expressions.  As the Venezuelan man sitting across from me put it after witnessing his first glorious Hiromi show, "It's not just how she plays... you can tell just how much she loves it, and those feelings transmit to everyone in the crowd."

Just like the first show, I met the people seated near me.  Tonight I will finally watch with a friend, but I've been on my own for the first two.  Luckily I usually enjoy talking to strangers.  If they're at a Hiromi show, something's right with them.

My companions were a French couple, a writer, and two people from Phoenix who had studied jazz and music theory in college. They were sharing stories about their recent vacation in Cuba when I joined them.  Their host was a man who had just published his second novel and wrote about weddings for the New York Times.  He gave me some advice about how to break in to the market: send short pieces to publications to make a name, and then it will be easier to sell a book.  I should have a project completed if it's fiction, but sometimes you can get an agent without a completed book.  I just know I have over 2,000 pages of shorter/medium pieces, many of which I could send to be published somewhere, two "books" I don't think I should publish yet, and one "book" that I am hoping to complete this year and share as my first real marketable work of art.  I'll share some of the introduction tomorrow.  I already knew about the approach he described, but it seemed like good luck to be seated next to him anyway.

Then Hiromi played.  She seemed to have even more energy than the first night.  I don't know how it's possible, but she manages to drop my jaw further every time.  She opened with the same three pieces, Warrior, Player and Dreamer.  Even so, she improvises so well that they felt like completely new experiences.

Then something absolutely yet counter-intuitively miraculous happened.  The people who had been in line in front of me while I waited outside had the table closest to Hiromi.  They had appeared to be acting strange during the show, and with about three songs remaining they actually got up to leave!  How could someone leave a Hiromi show?  I guess everyone has their own tastes.  I remember playing John Coltrane for my extended family a few years ago and having everyone complain and tell me to change it, and it was pure gold that I was playing for them, not strange experimental stuff.  I was happy though, because once she finished her current song I moved into the seat closest to the stage, directly behind her.  I've never been so close!

Best of all, she played "Firefly," my favorite song on her new CD, and probably the most beautiful and moving song I've ever heard her play.  I say that every time she has a new CD, but she manages to continue to top herself.  I watched with my mouth agape in awe pretty much the entire ten minutes that she played the solo song.  After that she played two more songs with the trio, Spirit and Alive, and I was in heaven.

The people I had been sitting with had never seen her live before, and the first thing they said was that they completely understood why I had come back to see her so many times.  It felt as though the entire world was glowing and vibrating pure loving energy.

I had to walk around outside for a little while before getting on the train, even though I was incredibly sleep deprived and really needed to catch up and go to bed.  I wandered to Sullivan Street and West 3rd, and then up to where Washington Park intersected Sullivan Street and you can see the Freedom Tower shining in the distance.

Of course, for the second straight night, the trains were over twenty minutes late.  Luckily, there was a strange man playing a keyboard, trumpet and singing.  He played "What a Wonderful World" as train after downtown train zoomed by in the hot sticky underground while we waited for the uptown trains.

That's all I have time to write tonight.  I'm going to show #14 now, and this time I will finally be joined by a friend, the same friend who told me about Hiromi in the first place.

Wherever they seat me tonight, I am very grateful that I get to see her at all :)

Absolutely Awe-Struck and Amazed

I will explain tomorrow...

Live Music!

I have been able to convince the class to start and finish thirty minutes early this evening.

That means today is a great day.

Why?

Because at 10:30 I will see Hiromi play!

Here Is There

The evening class commenced with one student: a Chinese visiting scholar at Columbia who loves trading stocks and watching the World Cup.  He is middle-aged, has a wife and a grown up son.  His "English name" is Ben.

Thou art that.

"I see myself in the other."

There are more students, and sometimes they are there at the start, and sometimes they arrive later.  We had about ten minutes alone to begin the class, which is how the first class began.  During the first three weeks we didn't know if the class would have enough students to continue.  Constant uncertainty.  That's been my life the past eight years.  Especially the past five.  Although it's actually everyone's entire lives.

The day had started with lessons about business titans.  I am not a business man, so it was strange to teach about these people.  Even so, there is much to learn about living and giving from Carnegie, Rockefeller and Gates.

Then we talked about gender equality.  The first class has several male students, but it just so happened that this morning's class consisted of fourteen women and one student's younger son who was observing for the day.  Lucky him.

About eleven hours later I found myself conversing about the intricacies of soccer, a sport about which I know next to nothing, because Ben was enthusiastic about it, and my job is to feed off of his enthusiasm and transform that energy into making him even more enthusiastic about speaking.

While he was talking about soccer I remembered that I don't care about soccer.  There are a lot of things I care about, but soccer is not one of them.  Many people care about soccer, but I am not one of them.  The World Cup may be the most popular sporting event in the world, but this is one area where I show my American colors with my absence of enthusiasm.  When I was younger I used to care a lot about basketball, American football, and baseball, and talk forever about it to people who did not care, namely my mother and my sister.  Speaking of which, my sister was obsessed with The Beatles to such a degree that even though I knew in my soul that they were amazing, I grew to loathe them.  As soon as she went to college, I loved them.  Maybe someday I'll love soccer, but I doubt it.  I love my feet, but I prefer to wield a ball with my hands.

Anyway, the conversation was pleasant, and I enjoy talking to Ben quite a bit.  He's a very positive, inquisitive and easily intrigued human being.  Even so, I thought it amusing that I begin my evenings with a man from the culturally, linguistically and geographically opposite land from my nation.  On top of that, I am a writer living on a relatively small income, while he admittedly loves stock trading.  When he talks about stocks he might as well be speaking Mandarin to me.  I'm sure he'd feel the same way if I went on about magical mystery  Still, there is a unifying ground beneath him and me.

Soon we were joined by a Chinese woman, a Spanish man, a Dominican man and a Dominican woman.  A few of them know each other from previous classes, so they get along well, but there is still a marked difference between the abilities of the Chinese scholar and the Dominican taxi driver, both of which I often find myself walking alongside on the ride to the subway once class is finished.  Balancing is a challenge.  You don't want the eager student to be held back from his full potential, but the less educated student is just as deserving of guidance and attention.  After all, he's paying the school the same amount for my time.  They're both buying communication skills.

Today the chapter in the text book was about buying things.  "The material world."  We asked each other what we liked to buy.  The Chinese man loved to window shop and talk to salesmen about new products so that he can know which stocks to trade.  The Spanish man shrugged his shoulders.  The Dominican woman smiled, got a little embarrassed, and said she loved to buy shoes.  I smiled and asked her why.  She laughed and said she didn't know, but she sees them and has to have them.  She really only wears them on weekends since she has to wear a work uniform on work days.  But she has a different pair for just about every weekend of the year.

We also learned vocabulary, including the word "generalize."  I have met many women who love shoes.  I've also met many women who don't appear to care at all about shoes, but it's something I associate with women more often than men, just as men tend to care about sports a little more than women, even though I can think of plenty of women who love sports more than certain men I know.  I understand sports and used to love them more than any reasonable human every should, but I don't care about them so much anymore.  However, I have never understood shoe worship.  Ever since that first year in the city when I saw a Sex and the City sweepstakes commercial with the women slowly walking toward the camera, wind blowing in their hair and the announcer glorifying winning many pairs of shoes as if they were the ultimate prize of being alive, I became very confused, because I'd never thought about them before.  Naturally they should be comfortable and help you make it from place to place, but after that, what's left?  I suppose I encourage everyone to look deeper at their world, so I can't fault those who find beauty in a shoe.

The Spanish student works in design marketing and said they did a study where they learned that Americans, on average, buy over 60 pairs of shoes a year.  That's more than one per week.  I have five pairs of shoes.  So did he.  The woman said she had about 30 in America, but more in her home country.  I've heard those figures before, from other students in San Francisco.  10 or more was typical for a guy, but 20-30 was normal for a woman, and one even had 100.  The man said Americans buy so many because shoes are very inexpensive here.  Huh.

The thing is, shoes are important.  I walk all the time (although not always with shoes), and I've experienced and learned much thanks to their help in making me move.  I'm happy there are quality artisans who can design footwear that enables me to climb mountains, play basketball and walk through cities with greater comfort and ease, allowing me to reach higher quality.  Beyond that though, I don't understand my society's fascination with them.  I see just about everything else on a person before I look at what they put on their feet.  That being said, if you love shoes as much as my student, please, by all means, continue to love shoes.  The world loves being loved in all its forms.  Just about everyone I know loves parts of the world that I don't understand, just as I love much that others can't comprehend.

They asked me what I buy.  I tend to spend my money on experiences, not materials.  If they are material, I usually need them to live, or at least taste deliciousness.  When I was younger I bought a lot of music, but that's about it.

When I walked home I got to thinking about what I've gained from all of this learning, seeking, pondering, wandering, wondering, losing, winning, fighting, creating, writing, sharing, caring, loving and playing in my 20's.  Obviously, I have gained much, although, at this point, the material gains are hard to measure.  That's one reason I write about these experiences and ideas.

I think one of the most important lessons I've learned is about living with differences, and accepting the joys of my partners in living which I can't share.  I have learned to care about what's here and there.

Loving Life With People

I just spent an excellent three days with five friends: Joe, Joe, Jim, Greg and Robyn.  Joe lives in Saratoga, Joe lives in Binghamton, Jim lives in Queens, and Greg and Robyn will be moving to NYC together in a few weeks.

The weather was perfect, which doesn't always happen.

The moon smiled and rose from behind Mt. Mansfield, the highest of the Green Mountains in Vermont, as five of us paddled canoes and kayaks or rowed in boats on the calm waters of the lake beneath a starry sky.

We had an adventure to the public wilderness of the island I had first visited alone, but have since celebrated with friends many times.  We brought kindling and wood for a fire, some beers, and even some tea to heat with a camp stove and enjoy around the campfire above the waters and beneath the stars.  We enjoyed the thirty minute peaceful float amidst the Milky Way, across the waters to the cabin, where we played games and listened to music with a fire in the fireplace.

We shared meals, took turns cleaning dishes and organizing supplies, laughed, talked about ideas, shared knowledge, shared our stories, caught up with our lives, and had an overall great time.

We even repaired my muffler thanks to the expertise of my friend, a new father as of this year.

Everyone gave to the group.

We enjoyed a stunning ride through the sunny Adirondack Mountains, having driven through those same mountains days earlier under cover of darkness and starlight, accompanied by the roar of a muffler that would scare a fifty foot grizzly bear.

We arrived at our various homes.

I taught five classes today.  I will teach five tomorrow.

The summer continues commencement with the gifts of Hiromi's shows.

Joy

HAPPY!!!

Walking from work, listening to "Spirit," grinning ear to ear.

Sun shine and free time!

Waking Up

Starting your day with 'Alive' tops any caffeine

Aye

More Hiromi!

I have been working more than usual this week.  Today is a 10 hour day.  This is good, because I am able to be self-sufficient and avoid hunger, which reduces productivity.  10 hour days reduce writing productivity, but I will be at 8 hours next week, which gives me more of a window for expression.

In other news, it has been very hot and stressful in the city, but life is still excellent.

Why?

Because I am able to finally listen to Hiromi's Alive.

I love every moment.  I have listened to this musical treasure every opportunity I've had since it was available for download a day ago.

My favorite song right now is "firefly," followed by "spirit," and "warrior," but I love every track on the CD.  I just wrote about a field of fireflies, and now, when I am in a crowded subway or hot crowded street, I don't care about the heat because I feel the radiant melody evoking memories of luminosity surrounding me.

Will you?  Buy it and discover her wondrous energy yourself!

These words are unable to express my emotions when I listen, because the music is beyond words.

JOY!

Art of Light

When I drove over the bridge the first time, I had been looking at an enormous thunder storm that had just begun to form as the bridge appeared in the first place.  The sky opened up, and water came pouring down like a waterfall.  Then, as soon as we were across, the rain calmed down, and I was able to ride home safely around 10.  The house was empty.  The folks were up at the lake.  I took three minutes to put a couple bags inside and then I was back with nature, my headlamp acting as an extra eye illuminating the fields for the others.  I soon realized that I did not need the lamp, because the forests and fields were filled with fire flies, hundreds upon hundreds, a feast for the eyes.  I hadn't seen fireflies for years.  I love New York.  I walked for three hours amongst the light show whose glow gave the appearance of an amphitheater crowded with flash bulbs, while the frogs sang in the night.  I heard Kermit in there somewhere.  Soon the sky opened up again, and I ran to the familiar tree spot where I had fires as a boy, a teenager, a college student, a young adult professional, a wandering poetry seeker and finder, and however you would describe me now.  Luckily the fire flies didn't stop their show, despite the rain.  I listened to a few songs, having until then walked in silence so I could hear the sounds of nature.  Hiromi's "Green Tea Farm" is the best song to listen to in a field of fire flies, so naturally I listened to her making the world happy.  Then I walked/ran back to the house in the rain.

The morning after I enjoyed seeing green grass and leaves and white clouds in between blue skies, so I made some tea, ate some breakfast, and began writing.  Since my parents were away and it was the day before Father's Day, I decided to do the first real chore and job I'd done as a teenager: mowing the lawn.  There were several hours of clouds until I built a fire in the same spot with the tree, when the clouds went away and the moon shined a light on my fire.

Today I had lunch with my parents before driving back to the city.  My dad was very surprised to see the freshly cut lawn.  He's a great man, and I'm very lucky to be his son.  He sprayed one of the hinges on my car door because it was creaking and he loves to take care of people.

He couldn't fix the headphone jack on my iPod though, which had shorted again at the beginning of the weekend.  I had some Hiromi CD's with me though, so I had an energetic and happy ride to the city.  The moon was rising on the hillside just beyond the same bridge where the sky had poured a river of rain on the ride up.  I love that bridge, because you can also see the city skyline for the first time on the drive.

I am happy to be back in the city, even though I just enjoyed a relaxed, rejuvenating weekend amongst countryside paradise.  I haven't had internet for two days, and that was beautiful, but it's very good to be back

YOU DESERVE TO BE VERY HAPPY

I see, we can do and be beauty we want to free.

1 Train Working

                I took the 1 train this morning with expectations of arriving ten minutes early.  I was in an excellent mood.  I had gone to sleep and woken up thanking the world for the blessings it had bestowed upon me, although I was mostly thinking about the bare necessities: being here, being healthy, being able to smell, touch, taste, hear and see, being free, and living in a world that often makes me happy.

                After a smooth beginning the train stalled, and then went slowly, and then stopped… for fifteen minutes.  The 2 had brake problems, so they were transferring the 2-3 trains to the 1 track.  So we had to go very slowly, and then the train stopped again.  I was feeling very cool about the situation, but I was also very excited to go to class.  Being a little late is alright because the students usually wander in a few minutes late too, since it’s their first class of the morning.  But I’m the teacher, and being 15 minutes late would not be a good thing.  But I couldn’t do anything about it at all.  I could have left earlier, but that didn’t matter at the moment.  All I could do was transform my perspective to adjust to the realities and accept that the train was going to take a little longer.  I began to get bothered by the trains from the other tracks holding us back, since it wasn’t our problem and we were ready to go.  But I also had to remember that I wasn’t the only star of the show, and that everyone else on the train also had someplace they needed to go.  As they say, these things happen.

                The upshot was that when we finally arrived at our destination, I had the motivation to sprint the remaining five blocks to work, which made me feel very alive.  The students were laughing and accepted my explanation.  A smiling man in the front row was wearing a Beatles shirt and said he knew my pain because he had also been on the 1 train.

                 That was the morning.  In the evening I finished at 10 pm, and the 1 train came as soon as I arrived at the station, the start of a smooth ride home.

We Train

In the afternoon I was on the 1 train riding home when a woman sat down next to me.  She had a little baby boy, a few months old, sitting in her arms.  After a little while I felt a hand touching my arm.  I turned and saw the infant smiling.  I smiled and waved, and then he smiled and waved, and the mom smiled.  Any time I thought he was done and was curious about something else, I turned my head away only to feel a tug on my arm, and see that amazing look of wonder in his eyes.  Then his mom put a bottle in his mouth, and I realized that someone had done that for me for a very long time too.  In a way, the world always is.

Love Humans

The first conversation of the day was how, according to our text book, religion affected the early work ethic of this country.  Therefore, we also talked about whether or not that still mattered, because the country represents so much more than it did before.  Talking about work ethic brought us to other issues, such as philanthropy.  “Philos” means “love of” and “anthropos” means “humans.”  So you are loving humans when you are philanthropic.  One student kept talking about how great Bill Gates is for giving so much money through his philanthropy.  Gates, of course, is the creator of Microsoft, the enormously successful computer software company based in Seattle, where Gates was born.  They design the software running on this same computer as I type these words in Word.  According to Wikipedia, as of this month, he is currently the world’s richest human being when measured in terms of material wealth.  His wife told him to be nice and love humans by investing in organizations that would improve life, and he did, just like the most iconic rich men in America had done before him.  I don’t know exactly what happened in his mind and his heart, but he did give the money, carrying on a proud American tradition of winning everything you can and then giving back as much as you want where you think it belongs in a way that improves the world, however much reality matches their visions.  The same student proudly claimed that Gates was an "atheist," but was still being good to people, as if that needed to be mentioned.  She had been very vocal during the religion discussion the day before.  Most students had merely shrugged their shoulders, said they believed in God, said they didn't, or maybe considered themselves spiritual, whatever that meant.  I love students who share their opinions openly and passionately, and she did not disappoint.

 “How can America be so advanced and publish more scientific papers than any other country and still have so many people believe in God?” she exclaimed.

I don’t know, but I just learned that Gates is one of them, whatever that means.  I'm not sure, because sometimes words have more than one meaning.  Teaching language reminds me of that every day.  According to Wikipedia, Gates said the following during an interview (you can follow up on the sources here):

“I've been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world.  And that's kind of a religious belief.  I mean, it's at least a moral belief."  In the same interview, Gates said, "I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don't know."

I read that later in the evening.  At the time I took her word for it.  I guess I learned you can't always take people's word for it.  Which side does that put me on?

My dad, whenever asked about religion, always says, “You must define your terms,” something I know a lot about as a writer, language teacher and even former paralegal.  Whatever it is that he believes, his actions show that he loves humans and works hard for them, because he loves to make people happy.

I agree that there is more than one path to philanthropy.

Does creating joy make you happy?

If yes, then I wouldn’t worry about words.

Do Vacations Work?

The other main theme of the first class today was how different societies value “vacation,” which could be defined as time not spent working at your main money-earning endeavor when you normally would be.  The US is the only “industrialized” country that does not legally require companies to give people vacation.  The average amount of vacation taken by Americans is 10.5 days per year.  Germans are granted 24 by law and usually take 30.  Australians get 20 and take 25, and Japanese are guaranteed 10 and take 17.5.  My French students assured me that if that chart had been larger, they would be right near the top too.  They said that happy workers are better workers, and you need time to step away from work, recharge and enjoy life so you can work optimally when you return.

I agree.

But you don’t just need vacations from work.

You can also take vacations from your society, so you can understand that there are other ways to see.  Then again, those "vacations" involve a lot of work.

Choice

Someone asked me for money again.  She said she'd been panhandling for years.  Loved living on the street.  She felt free.  She was much older than I am, and clearly wasn’t suffering for food.  She said that people just gave her money, and that she’d talked men into taking her to Hawaii, the Bahamas and Bermuda.  I enjoyed talking to her.  She was positive and friendly, but she wanted my money.  I asked her for advice.  She told me to be nice to people, be nice to myself, and to get a girlfriend if I didn’t already have one.  I said I had traveled instead, and that’s when she told me about her tropical paradises, where she had also panhandled.  I asked her if she did any work for anyone.  She said she just asked for money.  I don’t know her whole life or how happy she makes other people, but I didn’t have any coins, and a pyramid picture would better serve someone else.  I wasn’t withholding from someone in need.  I just decided that I was going to give it to a human who could really use a chance to love life.

Level IV

The Level IV class is in the middle of the day.  These students are a very different skill level from those who help me begin the morning and end the afternoon.  Luckily their abilities are similar to those of many of the students I just taught in the Bronx.  It’s a small class and a small room.  We have ten students every day.  They are mostly in their 20’s, but a few are 30, 40, and 50, and there is even a 12 year old boy from Colombia.  His family is visiting for a month.  He already learns a lot at a private school, so he is very confident, and most of the material comes more easily to him, which is a normal trend in foreign language study.

Whenever I ask them about culture shock, they eventually bring up the food in America, and all of the fat and sugar.  You can definitely eat healthy here, you just have to make some careful choices.  The boy had initially said that food in his home country was better, but then admitted that the fast food and sweets here are so delicious, even if it isn’t the healthiest food.  He appears to be a wiser, more confident and quicker learner than his peers, but he reveals his age when he talks about riding unicorns, dinosaurs eating people's faces, and visiting pony land in his answers to grammar questions.

We have a ten minute break between the two hours, so I went to the vending machine to get some chips, as I’d forgotten to bring my usual granola bar.  The boy was already there, about to buy a snack.  The day before he’d had Oreo's, and I’d challenged him to read the ingredients to see if he knew any words.  He knew a few.  We evaluated his choices beforehand today.  He’d wanted Skittles before I’d gotten there, and even paid for them, but they had gotten stuck in the machine.  He eventually settled on vanilla sandwich cookies.  I once again challenged him to read the ingredients and see how many words he knew.  It was sort of a joke, because a native speaker wouldn’t know those words either.  He can eat all the delicious food he wants.  So can the rest of us, but he’s only 12, and he’s learning a new language in a room full of adults.  He’s got time.  I envy his bright future, because he already seems so far ahead of me when I was his age.  Then again, when we returned to class, I realized that I was much happier to be standing and leading the class instead of squirming in my seat.

Who are YOU?

The afternoon class is an advanced listening class with about sixteen students from around the world: India, Japan, China, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Venezuela, Brazil, Russia, Turkey and France.  We have discussed what it means to belong in a group, the types of groups you can belong to, cultural standards for marriage, family and how those are changing, and peer pressure.  Today we talked about gender roles, and what it means to be a male and a female in various societies.  Sometimes I’m amazed that regardless of my gender, my current role is to lead these conversations, learn from them, and give my input when necessary, which is often.  It's a beautiful exchange: we all learn about everyone's cultures, and then learn how they compare with where they happen to be: American society.  This is the result of decisions they made freely, even if they don’t all love New York City.

What about you?

Do groups influence how you think and what you choose to do?

Liberty

I see you, who can be, free and do anything you want to

A Journey IN America

Live Improvisation

The evening class on the Upper West Side is amazing, because there are only five people and we can pretty much talk about anything we want.  We never know if the class is going to be canceled the next day because there aren’t enough students enrolled.  We have survived two weeks at this point.  It’s not my fault.  I do my best to make the experience enjoyable and informative.  The students who began have stayed, but it’s summertime, and overall enrollment is limited at 8 pm on week nights.  That doesn’t stop us from having a great time though.

A few hours ago I asked each of the five students who the happiest members of their families were, because that was the activity suggested by the book.  This exercise gave them plenty of chances to share and for me to teach and learn.  I learned that the Chinese man is from Chengdu, the city where I spent two weeks in May of 2010 reading War & Peace, waiting for my visa renewal, and meeting travelers from around the world at Mix Hostel.  It’s also the closest city to Emei Shan, the holy Buddhist Mountain where I'd hiked and spent three nights at the top waiting for the moon.  The man, a visiting scholar at Columbia University, had been there several times.  That led us to how we don't have a national religion so we don't really call any of them holy or spiritual.  This led to an improvised lesson about Mt. Washington, the highest point in the Northeast USA.  But to explain that, I had to tell them about the popular video game Halo, produced for the X-Box, the mighty video game system produced by Microsoft.  This required a definition of halo, such as a glowing light or aura around a human's mind, the moon, the sun, and even once I saw a rainbow around my shadow.  I waved hello.

Meanwhile, back on the mountain, the most spiritual music my friend and I could think of bringing to the summit was the theme music from the first-person warrior adventure game Halo, even though neither of us had ever owned an Xbox or played the game since the first half of college.  We had joked about it earlier, so my friend had actually specially downloaded it and played it on his iPod with some mini-speakers when we were atop the summit of the Northeastern USA.  There were many tourists at the top, because you can also drive there.  One of them exclaimed with delight that she could hear the monks chanting, before her brother said, “Wait, is that Halo?”

Then I taught them vocabulary words such as elevation, sea level and gains, before returning to the original topic of happiest family members.  The Dominican man’s sister is always happy, and he sees her twice a month.  The Chinese girl was happiest because she was an only child and her parents always encouraged her, believed in her and called her to make sure she was happy.  The Dominican woman’s younger sister is always happy.  The Mexican woman’s youngest sister was the happiest of five siblings.  On to the next question...

Activities.  We talked about hobbies that make us happy, what we do to cheer ourselves up, and plenty of improvised tangents that unexpectedly deviated from the main theme but then returned back to the first train on the track.

I AM...

I am very happy because today I made many people smile.

Thinking

Hello world.

The first class has commenced each day by talking about some of the deepest, most important and intriguing values, beliefs and ideas a group of people can talk about.

We began the course with cultural pluralism: the world is made of many different peoples who are all the same at the core, because they come from the same core.  The country that best manifests this diversity is the United States of America.  An example of this is the fact that we are a group of people from around the world discussing these ideas together, and we are all in America because we want to spend time in a place where there are many different people.

Then we talked about making generalizations about American beliefs.  I allowed the class to generalize either way they wanted, for or against, and everyone had plenty to say on both sides.  We're not all as great as we think we are, but we're not all as bad as everyone says.

Afterward, the book, American Ways by Maryane Kearny Datesman, JoAnn Crandall, and Edward N. Kearny, defined the core American values: individual freedom and self-reliance, equality of opportunity and competition, and material wealth and hard work.

Of course, there were a lot of comments about how much people from my country truly embodied those values, which meant I had to do a huge balancing act to allow them to get in their shots without allowing them to take cheap shots that weren't actually true.  Obviously many people in this country embody those values, and many more humans from other countries embody those values.  After all, every American either came from another country or came from people who came from another country.

We began this week talking about whether the well-being of the individual is more important than the well-being of the group, if there is such a thing as free will, if life is basically a "competitive race for success," if "money and material possessions are the best indicators of high social status," and "if I work hard, I am sure to get what I want in life."  Obviously there was much debate.

Today we talked about religion, because the book told us to.  We can talk about whatever we want, but these are as good starting points as any for a discussion, so we went with them.

As much as I try to steer the conversation to the students with follow-up questions or simple nods and points to other students to solicit opinions, very often they ask me, "What do YOU think?" because I'm teaching them.

I think that if you don't believe in yourself, then the world will eat you up, because the world is hungry for love and wants people representing it on behalf of its ability to create euphoria.  I think that you can only experience true euphoria if you know the joy of making others euphoric.

I accept everyone else has freedom to do what they want, but when it comes to judging souls, I know that everyone is of the world.  As for myself, I accept that the world allows me to do what I do, and sometimes gives me clues that the world always knows, always will know and always knew what I will go through.  Even so, I still say that I decide to do what I do because I think it's the best way to love true.

I know competition only exists to enhance experience, and is a never-ending process.  Life is only a competition with yourself to be the best you can be, even if that means matching your abilities with those of others you see so you can rise to a higher quality.  But life is also an opportunity for humans to realize they are playing irreplaceable stories in the cosmic symphony.  If you want your soul to feel happy, you must also learn to sometimes just be amongst all this ever-flowing eternity.  Who do you think you are competing against now?  What are you competing for?  Are they bringing out the best in you?  If not, then let them go.  If so, just know that it won't always be so, and whoever you think you have defeated or not, you  still have the rest of your life to go.

I know that money can be traded for material possessions, some of which, amongst everything else, have the power to deepen and lengthen your experience.  I also know that too much of anything can cloud your view of what is always beautiful and there for you, and you don't want that to happen to you.  There is so much wonder to go through, so to spend your time worrying about what others think of you, what you do, or the things you buy to express something about you would be simply dancing a circle around what is always the inner true.

I know that I don't know what we will get for our work, but I do know that life is working, and life is a reward.  I do know that you're very lucky if you enjoy working, because joyous work is its own reward.  If you want any rewards, regardless of what they are, you have to work for them.  What else would they be worth without the work?  Any view from a mountain can be spectacular, but trust me, I've done both, and hiking to the top gives your eyes beauty lenses you don't get when you just drive.  I believe it has something to do with your heart pumping more blood, your brain receiving more air, the fact that you clearly care because you're willing to dare to hike up there, risking an easy opportunity to survive in the name of feeling more alive.

I know that words such as religion and science represent approaches to life that are making some people survive and other people thrive.  I think that one without the other is like living at the north or south poles during winter or summer.  Sunlight and starlight need breathers, and are happy to balance each other every day so they can both enjoy love in full play.