THIS IS WHAT I KNOW;

The more I learn, the less I know. The age-old question we all have as humans on this earth is, what is my purpose? Why am I here? Some might float through life, going with the flow, always having this deep subconscious feeling that they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. That’s not me. I question everything. Sometimes I find the answer, but more often than not, it leaves me with more questions.

I have learned a few things in my almost 6 decades on earth. I’m not a fast learner. It took me a long time to learn that I’m not a fast learner. I need to learn by doing, and I need to fail at it 3 times before I get it! It’s good to know thyself. Especially the character defects. So I know that one of my, so called, character defects is that I am a little stubborn and need to fuck up a bunch of time before I learn. I have also learned that acceptance of one’s flaws, or shall we say, challenges, is essential to everlasting happiness. I have also learned that everlasting happiness is a crock of shit.

I think we can all agree that we are here to learn. Here, as in, planet earth. Even if you don’t spend most of your time thinking about ‘the meaning of life’, because let’s face it, who has time for that, most of us have an underlying feeling of the goal in life is to improve ourselves. I have also learned in my almost 60 years on planet earth that this place will beat you down in that process. I’m not beat down, yet. I still have life in me. But I have seen many people I love die because it was too much. I don’t blame them. It’s hard here. And that’s on purpose because how can we know gratitude and bliss if things aren’t shitty sometimes. This is a planet of duality. You can’t know good, if you haven’t experienced bad. However, if you are Buddhist, there is no good and bad, so there’s that concept you can try and live by. Maybe that’s the answer to the meaning of life. Buts that’s a hard one to practice daily, because lets face it, getting a flat tire sucks bad! You can try and put a positive spin on that one. Good luck.

I think a lot about what Jonah Hill’s therapist Phil Stutz says about the 3 things you can’t get away from in life on this planet: Pain, Uncertainty and Constant Work. BAM! There is it folks. First, we must accept that. Thank you Mr. Stutz for that beautiful, profoundly simple insight. It’s the Constant Work that pisses me off the most. Because then you don’t have time to deal with the pain and uncertainty, since you’re fucking working all the time! Brushing your teeth daily is work! The work is constant so thanks for the reminder that we all must work in one way or another just to sustain ourselves. But this still doesn’t answer the question of why we are here. Because if we are here to just be in pain, and feal uncertainty and work constantly, then no wonder life beats people down. Shit. The question remains, why are we here?

Dr Emoto is a Japanese scientist who would take microscopic photographs of water in crystal form. Every snowflake is unique as are these water crystals. He noticed the water would pick up messages and the crystals would all be different depending on the intention set towards the water or the ‘vibe’ in the room. To make a long story short, the most beautiful crystals he found were those with the vibration of gratitude. The moral of the story, this is the most important feeling we can have in order to feel better. Or at least, this is one of the things I have learned. Not always practiced to perfection, but the concept is deeply rooted in my psyche. You must be grateful for all the good in your life and when things are bad, we humans, because we know this on some level, we always say ‘things could always be worse’. God love us. Life is hard. Not that Stutz said it was hard. I am just coming to the conclusion that Pain, Uncertainty and Constant work are a bit hard! But we humans try and see the bright side, none the less.

I think we all struggle with insecurities. That’s probably the biggest issue on the planet causing most of our ills. We all want validation. We all want to feel special. Daddy didn’t validate us enough, so we sleep with strange men to seek validation. Oh shit, did I just go there? At my age, that’s not how I seek validation, anymore. But I still look for validation. We all do. But we don’t ever really get it. It’s fleeting. It doesn’t last when you get it anyways. The ego needs more. We seek to have it filled with other people, or our careers or we drown our lack of self-worth with mind altering substances or bad habits. This is where, perhaps, some may lose the plot and give up. I think we’ve all been on the edge before at some point in our lives. But something inside us brings us back. Back to the fucking classroom, to continue the lessons, so that we may grow. We are all children stuck in this classroom together. Looking for a phantom teacher to validate us and give us good noodle stars.

But children have fun. We play on this beautiful playground called Earth! We love. We laugh. We get to eat donuts. We even have gluten, sugar free ones now for those of you can’t eat a regular donut. I don’t want to leave anyone out. We know this is temporary. We know we are going to leave this planet. Nobody can give us a brochure to show us where we will go next. Most of us believe it’s to a better place. It’s like going home for the summer after a long school year. And then we come back to the next grade and do it again until we get it right. Don’t tell me you don’t believe that, because I know that today most of us believe in reincarnation. I mean, if this is my only chance to get it right, then I’m screwed. Like I said, it takes me at least 3 times to get it right!