Love and Trust

Always nice to see them

We all need a little color in our lives

Mr. Abrams at sunset

As I looked up into the sky, lying on my back in a field, I thought to myself that we don't look up enough. Granted there's not much to see during the day, the blue canvas inhibits our view of the vastness. Its easy to forget how small we are and how incredible this thing called life is. 

During our second class we were lucky enough to have two guest speakers (1st picture), two gentlemen I've had the pleasure of knowing for a few years. After giving some advice about getting a job and finding housing, one thing stuck out to me that went something like, "leave room for your values to be redefined." I wrote this one down in my notebook because it seems like I've been trying really hard at times to nail my values down. You know, who am I? So being reminded that I don't have to do that kind of takes the pressure off. 

To say more about living and advice from older beings, Steve Jobs had a lot to say in his commencement speech. And it wasn't that he said a lot, I heard two main things in the whole fourteen minutes: Love and Trust. He said that we have to trust that the dots will connect in the future which will give us the confidence to follow our heart- and by following our heart and listening to our gut, we will always make the right decision. Personally I'm at a point where the potentials of my future are laid out before me and I stand before it without a map. I get asked every few days, "So what are your plans after college?" And I say that I don't have any plans. Its just funny because everyone seems to expect a plan of action, and it makes me feel like I should have a plan, but I've decided that I want to go with it, to trust that something will come up (not to say I'm standing before the future idly), and its a little intimidating. What if I don't make it? What if I fail? So its reassuring to hear from someone so successful that the best thing one can do is trust and follow their heart. I think this has something also to do with "seeing" too in that we have to be open for it to work and we have to in the present moment. Jobs also said that remembering that we will die eventually keeps us from thinking we have something to lose and that there should be no reason not to follow the heart because there's nothing to lose from doing so. Good point. But as he said, it does take some courage. I only hope that I can find that courage when I need it- because we all have it, its all there, its just covered up by shit, shit that keeps us down. But back to dying (because its a good transition).

I worry about dying. I want to know what happens, and I have trouble taking comfort in not knowing. The soul has a big factor in the figuring out what happens next equation. At the retreat center I was interning at over winter break, they all were under the impression that we all have a soul and people reincarnate. Sweet, awesome, all done. Well no because then you have scientists like these guys that we read about that says, well that soul that you're talking about doesn't exist and it can't be proven and to call what we don't understand yet a "soul" or "spirit" is frankly pretty stupid. And these two sides feel combative. They're so sure about what they believe. The scientist calls "consciousness" some "mysterious thing" while meditation leader lives by consciousness and knows it very well. And again, I am stuck in the middle, pulled very strongly one way by my spiritual side, but then ripped the other way by my intellectual side. But, in regards to Soul 2, I feel better. When I started reading the paragraph that introduces Soul 2 I said to myself in regards to the article, "Oh don't you dare take away deep feeling, sensitivity and soulfulness."  And they didn't, because if they did I would have stopped reading. So I have a dilemma. I am moved by my idea of Soul 1 but I am also moved by the idea of Soul 2. I believe in both. Soul 2 can be seen in my last photo above. I am in awe of the universe. I don't have a religion, but nature is the closest thing. And honestly if there is no soul 1, if there is no afterlife or unconscious part of us, I could take comfort, and I do, that we are all made of the same stuff, constantly recycled. I die, but the stuff that makes I never ceases to exist. 

I feel that creativity and success have everything to do with love and trust. Steve jobs said it, he'd agree. Van Jones said it too, "When it gets harder to love, love harder." If we trust, its impossible to worry about death and failure, and if we love we cannot be anything else than successful.