TWENTY WAYS TO MATTER

Excavate the truth beneath the truth beneath the truth —
the deeper you go, the simpler it gets:
the longing, love, insecurity, rage, loss —
all of it part of the same fabric,
all just a story
emerging from the quantum foam.

Move through the world
knowing that everyone around you
is doing the best they can,
that humanity is capable
of the Moonlight Sonata
and the concentration camp,
that you are a piece
of the same puzzle.

If you are longing for
the world to be more perfect
do something about it:
become a kind of translator
between reality and possibility,
cast a light on a parallel world,
that little speck in the distance —
it is the hope, it is the struggle, it is the reward.

Let go of the future
but hold on to the beautiful things
that, like music, exist outside of time —
the sense of wonder and love and light.

When the chord changes on you
what if you harmonized it?

The black hole of your devastation
is a wild strange expansive place.
We are really good at coming up
with reasons to not go there.
Go there.
You will find the seeds
that become galaxies of growth.
You will find
what the soul and the spirit and the heart
need to know.

Be on the inside of your heart,
make a home inside yourself,
for to keep other people happy
is distraction from the real work of being
in which there is no final test
for how to be human —
only the open question
of how to be yourself
which you must answer daily
with all the strength and kindness
that you’ve got.

And remember
that life is an extraordinary creative collaboration,
that if we keep shining a light
on the things that mean and matter the most
the light overcomes the darkness,
that love is the oldest light in the universe
and when you live and work and listen
with open-hearted love
everything
everything
everything
is possible
for your life.

2041

50 things I know