Always Something Else

I am hesitant to give this blog a title and an agenda, at least for the time-being.

I’ll explain why with a story.

I went to a party last Friday night. Having holed up in the mountain refuge of my parents’ home for a week with no cell service and little exposure to the outside world, I thought it might do me some good to get out of the house and interact with people my own age.

The party--more of a Burning Man-esque soiree--was held in the backyard of a large, run-down home in a residential neighborhood near Downtown L.A. I was greeted at the door by a thin, bearded man with a broad smile. He wrapped me in a tight embrace, planted kisses on both of my cheeks, and invited me to “Be welcome.” A petite, brunette woman covered in ancient tattoo inscriptions immediately began “smudging” me (showering me with sage incense). “It clears you of bad energy,” she explained. I filled out the sign-in sheet, noting in particular the column for listing any “talents or special skills you’d like to share.” I scanned the entries above: tarot cards, ecstatic dance, Qigong...just a few of the skills already listed.

I stepped in through the back gate and found myself in a modern hippy wonderland. Costumed acrobats practiced their partner yoga on Persian rugs strewn casually throughout the yard. A blonde, dreadlocked DJ spun ethereal, electronic beats amidst a fortress of white cubes. In a corner, a group of painters worked collaboratively on a superhero, goddess-like peice taking shape on a large canvas before them. Strangers hugged and smiled like old friends. At some tables near the entry, bronzed and yoga-toned hosts offered us “superfood” snacks and “mocktails” (it was a dry event).  Business cards advertising tarot readings, fire dancing, and “enlightened party-planning” floated around like confetti.

(Below: A friend showing me how to use my new GoPro at the event)

A small, nerdy-looking white man in a wolf headdress and a large, beaded amulet invited my friend and I to join a Japanese tea ceremony. He introduced himself as Barnaby, and laid out seven cups, six for those of us present and one for ‘Buck Nana,’ his brother from a past life. In an intermission of sorts, he treated us to a 15 minute solo performance of his sitar-strumming creations.

I floated through the party amused, but disengaged and slightly aloof. This may seem perfectly normal to those of you averse to this particular vein of spiritual/artistic exploration. But it wasn’t the subject matter that put me off. I am very interested in alternative, holistic health, and both teach and practice yoga and meditation. On paper, I should feel very at home in this group. But something held me back.

It took me a good 24 hours to put my finger on what exactly this was. Though I shared their initial spark of interest, there was something ‘put on’ about the performance. Something contrived. Their words, dress, tattoos, and business cards all declared unquestioningly: “I am this person...this enlightened, open being. Are YOU?”

Well, yes and no. I have moments of creative insight and enlightened calm, but they are few and far between. I wake up most mornings with fear and confusion, overwhelmed by the abrupt reality of the world around me and my total vulnerability to it. I swim through whirlpools in my mind--racing through to-do lists left unfinished, mental footage unreviewed from days prior, nervous forecasts for the days to come. It takes a couple of hours to find dry land and stand solidly on my two feet. Only after a cup of coffee and some meditation or yoga do I begin to re-inhabit my body, calm the incessant circling of my thoughts, and have a shot at moving through the day with some inspiration or intention. Some days, I never get there.

Even when I do, the vast majority of my day is still spent in the unsexy in-between: brushing my teeth, preparing food, setting up appointments, commuting, taking care of responsibilities, making lists, struggling to get everything done. It requires a very deliberate and conscious effort to reach a place of clarity and perspective, let alone creativity and “enlightenment.” And it’s an ongoing and repetitive process; a process of peeling back layers and layers of fear and self-doubt, of identifying and shedding automatic mind patterns over and over and over again. I never “arrive” at any final destination. And that's ok--it's what makes me real and relatable and human.

I was overwhelmed by the self-assured sense of “arrival” I felt from those I encountered at the party, the self-definition they so confidently projected. To me, it undermined a world of vulnerability, self-doubt, and constant evolution that we all undergo every day. I couldn’t connect because I couldn't find the real people behind the performance.

Towards the end of the evening, I fell into a conversation with a man named Carl. Carl was of medium height and olive-skinned . He had grown up in Austin, though his family originally hailed from Greece. For several minutes, Carl took me on a full tour of his tattoos: the olive wreath around his bicep, the Zen symbol on his shoulderblade, the Hindi aphorism over his heart. He asked me if I had any. “No” I replied. "I thought about getting the Sanskrit word ‘Satyam’, which means ‘truth’ or ‘seeing what is’, at the base of my skull a couple months ago.” I had been studying yoga at the time and Satyam is one of the restraints in the eight limbs of Raja yoga. “But I never did," I went on. "I just realized that anything I would have chosen three or four years ago, even if it felt like absolute truth at the time, would be irrelevant now.”

I doubt that truth and honesty will become less important to me in the coming years. But “seeing what is” in that moment meant seeing that I am not a solid, defined entity. I am born every morning and die every night. Every thought, experience, relationship, and passion of mine has had a lifespan. And all of it--the clothes I wear, the company I keep, the art I consume, the interests I pursue--will be swept away in a few years to make way for the new. I want to be open to this unfathomable new, to be curious and free-flowing towards it. And as soon as I define or create an identity out of the things I surround myself with, I lose that openness and spontaneity. I lose my willingness to be wrong.

I read a book a while back on the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Lojong, which aims to increase compassion. It was written by Zoketsu Norman Fischer, an American Soto Zen roshi, poet and Buddhist author (I told you I was into this stuff!). In the final pages, Fischer leaves us with an admonition: "Don't expect applause,” he advised, “don't expect scorn, don't expect anything but the unexpected. Because that is always what happens, even when you expected it. If you look a bit more closely, it's always something else."

I have not titled this blog beyond my name and a lose intention to be 'alive', because I want to expect the unexpected. I want to stay ever open to becoming "always something else."