Hi Reader,

You know, what I really want to do is teach. But the stuff I want to teach about seems non-teachable. Stuff about the spiritual life (as if that's some kind of unified thing I could point to) or meaning and purpose (as if those are externally definable goals as opposed to things you generate for yourself and your life).

It occurs to me that what I write about is the art of living (as if I'm any good at it). And what does an art teacher teach? Not art, that's for sure. They teach techniques. It's up to the students what they do with the techniques.

I think there's something I'm holding onto, something I'm afraid to let go of. What would it look like to live my life as a work of art? To prioritize beauty? What does a beautiful response to a toddler's whining look like? I speak calmly, I maintain my patience. It doesn't feel beautiful so much as it feels like hanging on through a storm. But what is it I'm hanging onto?

I have this calling I'm working toward. I currently express it as "...that people experience the deep peace of coming home to themselves this very moment, no matter the circumstances."

Let me tell you, I never feel like a bigger imposter than when I lay claim to this calling. Seriously, who am I to aim my life at something like what I want to be true for everyone, all the time? (And it's not as if I myself live with this kind of spaciousness even a fraction of a fraction of the time.)

What I would like to be done with is all this messy fumbling, this skill-building and technique learning, this studenting. And yet, I am called to find being home in the midst of it.

What would it sound like if I wrote what I wanted to say as a teacher instead of a student? Maybe like this:

Something lies waiting for you. Your future. If you get very quiet, you might hear it calling. At times it arrives as barely a whisper, as if echoed across years or decades. Other times, if you let it, it may drive you to your knees, trembling with emotion.

There are no words for this future. If you want to steer the ship of your life toward it, you must create the words for yourself, from nothing. The words will be imperfect, as will your navigation. That is acceptable, because navigation is not permanent. So you steered wrong yesterday, or just then; you have the gift of this moment to course-correct. Such a course-correction demands that you be attuned to the calling. But the calling is wordsless and cannot be grasped by the mind.

All of this, of course, is meaningless. Your journey, when viewed from afar, appears as no more than a writhing wiggle amongst countless other wiggles, traceable for a time before vanishing into eternity. The idea is not that you "make something of your life," for your life is already as nothing. No, the idea is that, in listening to the calling, you fulfill your longing for yourself. Because what there is to discover is that the one who is calling you into the future is you.

Yet "discover" is too strong a word. Perhaps you aren't destined to discover some kind of truth, even at the moment of death. No, a closer word is "trust." To trust that the calling is real and the journey worthwhile. To trust yourself to deliver you to each new step. It is in this trust and the action it generates that you come to see that the calling that has drawn you into the future only exists from a certain perspective. That you aren't, in fact, waiting to meet your complete self in some years-distant moment; rather, that your complete self has always been right here, waiting for you to notice them.

There's an anecdote from Jackson Pollack: after he made his first drip painting, he had his wife come out to his studio and look at it, lying there on the ground. He didn't ask, "is this a good painting?" Instead, he asked, "is this a painting?"

So. Is this art?

I think part of the fear I'm holding onto is that the answer is "no." Ah, no: it's that the answer will always be "no." What an irony that I should need to dance with that fear, thus rendering it real, in order that it not become true.