The problem with dwelling on problems is that there’s always enough to go around. Not enough money or time. A seemingly unsolvable dilemma persisting long after the enthusiasm to find a solution has sapped. An argument or harsh remark looping in our brains, carving out an ever-deeper crevice in our cranium, until we forget it was just someone else’s pain projected onto us. A rancid regret, a wound time no longer seems to heal. An estranged relationship or an emotional loose end. Worries about a future that doesn’t yet exist, but somehow seems to come true when we look for evidence that the worst is upon us.
The problem with problems is that we continue to call them problems and then wait for them to go away. The alternative is to consider them ‘challenges’ and cultivate an excitement at the thought that this is not the roadblock but the starting line of the next leg of our whimsical journey through the infinite mystery of life. When we get excited about deciphering how the challenge came to be, and how we helped create it, we’re more likely to start noticing how it can come to be an opportunity, and how we can use it to our advantage. Rejection? What a great way to get comfortable with rejection while understanding the basis for why they don’t want who they think we are in their life, and how we are showing up that misses the mark of our own definition of authenticity. Failure? Seems like a good time to understand where the miscalculation or oversight happened and how we can test the persistence we need to make success eventually effortless. Death? Chances are for many of us, confronting the fear of death, of loved ones and ourselves, is the most powerful way to shift our perspective on what life is all about. And that sounds like an opportunity I’d welcome, even if it’s a really challenging one. Death, is not a problem. Confronting death is a challenge that allows us to come alive.
We all die in a way we do not wholly choose, so we might as get on with living with the awareness that every day is filled with infinite choices that are always available to us.
Discovering what we have control over is an expansive process that takes many lifetimes to complete, if there is such a thing as completion at all, or many lifetimes. Facing our perceived problems head on is probably the only real way forward to the deepest sense of fulfilment, and learning to do so with joy is perhaps the most powerful way to uncover the infinite sense of opportunity that the challenges provide. Because, while from a sideways glance our problems might look indestructible, when we stare straight at them, they become crystalline, glassy, and ready to shatter into dust before our eyes.
The goal was always to grow, wasn’t it, away from darkness of fear to the light of love? As I understand it, most of us agree that we to be able to take adversity increasingly in stride, to release the pain without forgetting the beauty in every memory, to dream bigger than we’d previously dreamed we could. We find out that the extraordinary size of the dream is what excites us to move beyond our current experience into something more deeply fulfilling, neurologically soothing, and more spiritually transcendent than we feel at this exact moment. This is a slow undimming, not a flash of blinding enlightenment. All we have to do is learn how to see in the dark, and the lights come on. We might as well start becoming our own light and enjoy letting our eyes adjust.
I returned to Vancouver, increasingly convinced that the light I had discovered and cultivated could be sustained despite geographic and contextual familiarity. I could look into familiar eyes of others with fresh eyes of my own and see within them an entirely new universe, if I wanted to, and if the familiar people wanted to, too. And if I struck out with the familiar, there was a universe full of new people, awaiting to be heard, appreciated, and discovered. And it’s not like I was being rejected by everyone I knew. When it came right down to it, there were probably only five or ten people that I was sad to see fade out of my life on emotional grounds, and most would trickle back a little closer than they are now, given enough time. All of our relationships are dynamic, like waves, ebbing and flowing in perpetuity, never washing up onto the beach with the same pattern twice. If people needed space, they ought to take the space, and I’ll learn what I can from it, too. If they decided they wanted to contact me again, I’d keep the door freshly painted and propped wide open. If they wanted to explore how to take space well, and therefore how to have disagreement well, and therefore how to employ curiosity in a way that they haven’t before, I’d be happy to discuss. In the meantime, I’d be continuing to do my best to understand their human experience in order to meet them there.
What I could control was how I responded to the unanswered texts, the unreturned phone calls, and the invitations to connect with those who hold different opinions.
]First, I’d simply allow myself to feel the sadness and fear and agony of the aggressive rejection.
Next, I’d reconnect with the awareness that their hostility or offendedness is not personal, even if they believe it to be. No one who has heard me out in a disagreement hates me. They might think they do, but we aren’t capable of it as humans. Where we find mutual understanding, we find love, and without understanding them, we know not what we hate. We are not capable of rejecting a person and listening to their ideas at the same time. They weren’t rejecting the ‘me’ who I am, but rather, the ‘me’ who they’ve perceived me to be, with a severe lack of curiosity. They were rejecting an idea, but the idea is never personal.
Third, I’d recognize that any decision to hold grudge or harbour resentment is simply a burden to myself, so I must be careful to not blame anyone of treason for having pulled away, shunned, or shamed me for things later . They do not need my judgement. They are doing the best they can, just as I am. I can afford them the same grace I afford myself. We are all just doing the best we can. Really. All of us. All the time. But we can still choose to learn to do better. And, like I mentioned, facing up to how fear controls us, and where our pain is, fear awaits. We call them triggers, but, really, it’s just unhealed bruises we need to kiss better.
I’d heard back from a number of people I’d reached out to in Vancouver, after all. Someone who had deleted me off social media tentatively entertained the idea of sushi the next week. Another call got a response that they’d been following my adventure and cheering me on, but that they no longer lived in Vancouver. That little dose of encouragement alone buoyed me and kept my heart tender enough to receive the love that comes my way. Another friend, Nadia, immediately texted me her schedule, her address, and a picture of the harbour view from her North Vancouver high-rise condo and told me to come crash in her spare room anytime the next week. And, perfectly, a dear old friend from university, Krista, was elated to hear from me and happened to available to have dinner Wednesday before heading out of town for May Long weekend. This also meant her stunning condo in East Vancouver would be empty. I could stay there, she suggested, settle into the city with her cat, The Dude, and prepare for the next leg of the adventure.
Much like I’d braced for Los Angeles, I recognized I was bracing against Vancouver, and instead of taking two weeks to shift the problem to opportunity, as it had in the California sunshine, I expected that I wouldn’t need more than a day or two of adjustment before I was truly excited and inspired to be here. I knew that any discomfort I felt about being back was something I could be excited to alchemize. Vancouver would change when I changed. I controlled my outcome in this city. Doing so from the comfort of a condo, rather than a string of cold nights in the van, sounded like the most luxurious gift I couldn’t wait to accept.
The cherry trees were in full bloom, the days were warm and full of much-welcomed sunshine, and the occasional sprinkle of rain and cool nights just created a rhythmic contrast. Many in this city had endured a difficult winter, ideologically, economically, emotionally and meteorologically. In Vancouver, these days, rain and tears were virtually indistinguishable. As I wandered East Vancouver before meeting at Krista’s, I saw the sullen stares and grieving grimaces smeared across the majority of faces, regardless of how fancy the clothes were. One of the twists of becoming happier is that sadness in others becomes more noticeable, because their entire emotional experience seems to be a little bit more apparent. The less trapped I am in my own head, the more I can perceive the exact emotional cocktail coursing through the veins of anyone willing to share. And the more I could meet them there, the more they wanted to share, and then the more I learned how to listen. In Vancouver, it seemed, my presence might not illicit a response from someone exclaiming “oh my god, I feel that happy, too!” but it might be welcomed by those who’ve been a little lost in their dark thoughts for a little too long, and have grown weary of a burden they no longer wish to carry. If the cherry trees could glow bright pink after a moody grey winter, I was confident in my hope for us all.
I didn’t come here to change minds through argument, but to change mindsets through acceptance – starting with my own. I walked through a community garden, remembering that the humans and the plants all want the same things – to survive, to feel good, and to connect with the rest of nature around us. Fear and anger were just different forms of the same internal void we create when we deny the reality of what is. My job was to learn how to bounce out of that void stronger than ever and encourage anyone else I saw who was ready to do the same. I created the job for myself, so I might as well do it well.
I met Krista and her boyfriend Tev for dinner at their place. They had recently purchased the condo, totally gutted it, and custom designed every aspect of the renovation. The finishes were immaculate, the furniture was a blend of natural woods, and the bathroom had a rain shower and extra deep tub and towering glass jar of Epsom salts for the deep, long soaks. The television, rather than creating a black square on the most visible wall, featured a stunning over-head view of a beach, half ocean and half sand, peppered with swimsuits and the occasional pool floaty. Nature swimming in nature, life doing life things, one wave at a time.
Wishing I didn’t look quite so grubby for these nice people and nice surroundings, I had no choice but to embrace the unkempt beard and strange excuses for clothing that now felt very normal to me. “You present differently,” Krista said, as she opened a glass of white wine, but…you’re still the same you.” She poured the Chardonnay into our glasses while Tev cooked a new recipe he’d been meaning to try. “You seem lighter, though, more energized.” She smiled softly, sitting down to the table.
There were many fascinating discussions, and I was once again reminded that Krista has always been a magical balance of elegance, goofiness, intellectual genius, and emotionally engaged. She says it exactly how she sees it, but seamlessly seduces me into an expanded way of reimagining my own perspective. She was a sumptuous blend of well informed, articulate, warmly approachable and playfully curious. She worked for a non-profit, spending her days helping First Nations communities access grants and funding. It was one of those jobs that somehow shouldn’t exist, much like cleaning up a government crime scene.
We’d met in a development studies class a decade earlier, but, unlike me, she’d excelled and absorbed the academic literature, played with the provided intellectual models and theories, and fluently learned a new vocabulary that included concepts like “integral theory” and “intersectionality.” She seemed to approach many things I’d been contemplating from a research and policy perspective. In one sense, she’d been in the classroom and I’d been on the streets. In another sense she’d been on the front lines of human restoration and I’d been in the sales pit. I’d share something, and she’d immediately be able to place the idea into a theoretical framework and connect dots easily between various concepts, keeping me guessing at what she’d come up with next. She’d share something, and I would be scrambling to write down words I’d never heard.
In response, I might argue from a place of intuition, just to see how it landed in her highly informed reality. I’m by no means an intellectual slump, but I felt a tinge of inadequacy arise in confronting how little I’d paid attention in school. But, in lieu of highlighting textbooks and making flashcards, I’d definitely drifted towards hands-on and first-hand wisdom and insights rather than get too trapped in memorizing someone else’s rigid reality. She’d been digging deeper into frameworks and I’d been extrapolating frameworks from collected data.
But of course, my version of ‘trapped’ could be someone else’s liberation, and so, whatever paths we choose and means of exploration we gravitate towards, the goal should only be to employ earnest and humble curiosity and aim for enthusiastic collaboration. We need induction and deduction. Nothing Krista and Tev shared seemed incompatible with my own experience – we all had ideas to explore that the others hadn’t heard before, and the warmth of the long exchange bolstered my belief that we are better off listening to each other rather than trying to lean to heavily on our own experience as somehow objective. The inherent limitations of the subjective experience naturally lead us to the abundant opportunity for vibrant discourse. We might as well accept the responsibility upon us.
The next day, I met Krista and Tev to get the rundown of how to take care of the cat and the nineteen plants (twenty, including Wilson), and said goodbye as they vacated my new home for three days. I sat for a long time in silence on the couch, taking in my beautiful surroundings and feeling grateful for generous friends and perfect timing. My thoughts felt scattered. Sitting still felt difficult. I had a bit of a sniffle and the cat was making my eyes sting. I sat longer, determined only to move in any direction once my nervous system was regulated. Three hours later, I woke up from a surprise nap and decided to venture out.
Thoughts of good friend who had decided not to call me back fell heavy on my heart, and I decided to head to the brewery where we’d really connected and celebrate the five years of connection. Arriving at Brassneck Brewing, I sat down at a long table beside a couple and ordered a flight of four beers, including the classic amber ale I’d loved so much five years ago, the last time I’d been here. The idea was, I would sit in a familiar and pleasant spot, enjoy the memories of the good times, release any sadness that needed witness, and ensure I was open to some eventual reconnection if she ever changed her mind. When the flight of four small glasses arrived, I raised it to the neighbouring couple, and simply sat there with a soft smile and deep breaths.
“How’s the beer?” the girl asked. She was brunette, friendly, and reminded me of
“It’s not bad,” I smiled, “this one is my favourite, and I wouldn’t get this other one again.” I wasn’t sure I had much energy for interacting with anyone yet, but I always tried to remain open to those who approached me.
Her boyfriend piped in, “We like the same beer, then. There’s lots of breweries around here but this is one of the best.”
“Totally! I haven’t been here in a long time, but I just came for a quick drink and I’ll be on my way.”
“You’re traveling, I take it?” They were curious and kept engaging, so I decided I’d just take a passive role, rolling with any idle conversation that came up.
“Yeah, I’ve been on the road for a while. Originally from Calgary, but the goal is that home is wherever I happen to be in that moment.”
“Oh, you’re one of those,” he smirked.
“One of what?” I asked, keeping a lazy, friendly tone.
“Just, like, living in the moment kind of guy. Basically like a hippie.”
“I mean, yeah, I’ve got the van and everything,” I laughed, “but it’s not really about trying to be a hippie, it’s about reconnecting with our own human experience and realizing that a lot of what we’ve been taught to do is quite literally to our own detriment.”
“Well, yeah, that’s true. This world is losing its mind right now.”
“What I’ve found is that most people hunger for simplicity, get stuck in their heads telling themselves they aren’t doing enough or good enough, and then make decisions from a place of unresolved emotions which leads to more complexity. Whatever you want to call it, I’m learning to do the opposite as best as I can. And honestly, I’m not really living that van life, either. It’s just a good way to get around while I meet people and learn. Trust me, this isn’t glamorous, but yeah, I guess I’m a hippie.” I laughed.
She came alive, immediately sharing about her own desire to work through her childhood pain, and increase her confidence. I affirmed her intent. He changed the subject. Something about how weird someone else looked at another table.
I chose silence again, not feeling the desire to push the conversation or engage too deeply. The nap had left me a bit subdued. My throat felt misshapen. I had a gentle headache. Within a minute, she picked up the thread again.
“So, like, what do you do for work?”
I chuckled. The question hung around my neck like a stone on a rope, but the answer was as elusive as a helium breeze. “Well, I write a lot and have a podcast, so that’s kind of my work right now. I’ve been staying with people as I travel, learning from them and getting into some intense conversations. A few people pay for what I write, and most of what keeps me going is the goodwill and offerings of the people I stay with. Food and shelter go a long way, and then I just have to make enough to put gas in the tank. The money will come soon enough, and I’m already getting my first clients.”
He seemed intrigued. “So, what kind of things are you talking about on the podcast?”
“Ahh, it’s a big range, but mostly around exploring passion, facing frustration, cultivating self acceptance, unlocking authentic communication. Honestly, just getting into the deep end of people’s lives with them and seeing what makes them tick.”
“So you’re having these conversations and then…just recording it? Or are you talking about the deep stuff and then recording another conversation later?”
“Both, really. Sometimes I’ve known them for a couple days and then we record. Sometimes they are just walking down the street where I’ve set up my microphones and they sit down and we explore.” I shrugged with a smile. “I don’t really have a plan, exactly. It just seems to flow organically.”
Her eyes were as wide as her smile. His brow was furrowed. “I don’t get it. Why would people tell you anything about themselves at all?”
“I think we just want to feel understood. It feels good to get some stuff out there. Plus, we’re really just talking about things they want to talk about, you know? Not that different from what we’re doing right now.”
“Yeah, but we’re just having a conversation in the bar. You can’t recreate that again with someone just any time you like.”
“No, you can’t recreate it, but you don’t need to. The conversation just keeps going. Maybe we talk about something right now, but we could easily find something else to talk about later. And maybe talking about it now makes it easier to talk about it later, too. I just pull out the microphones and see what happens next.”
She piped in, and he sat back with his arms folded. “So, you’re actually just setting up on the streets and talking to anyone? I’m trying to imagine that.”
“Here, I’ll show you guys a picture.” I opened my Instagram, slid the phone to them, and described what they were looking at. “This is right along the boardwalk at Venice beach. Just two chairs, a sign, some microphones, and these shiny rocks, just because they look nice and catch people’s attention. Or at least, that was the idea. Nobody else really cared about the rocks.”
“Oh my gosh! What a —”
He talked over her, slid the phone back, and looked directly at me. “Ok. I’m just going to talk straight with you, because that’s just how I am.”
“Love it.” I smiled, but my chest tightened almost imperceptibly.
“I think your social media sucks. Like, who wants to talk to a guy with shiny rocks and a frilly little table cloth about personal stuff. The pictures you have aren’t even nice to look at and it’s not really a surprise that you don’t have any followers.”
I nodded with raised eyebrows and looked back at my feeble profile. “Ooh, yeah. I know what you mean. I really don’t like social media that much, so I struggle with how to convey what I’m doing in a way that can garner a following, while also still trying to focus on actually doing the work well, you know? When it comes down to it, I choose just doing it.” His jaw was a little clenched, but he stayed engaged. She took a drink and looked tense toward us both. “I wonder if you have any tips on what I could do better. I mean, you’ve heard the idea, you see what I’m doing… what should I do to make this work better?”
“No, you don’t get it. You shouldn’t be doing this at all. People shouldn’t be recording conversations like that. The whole thing is stupid.”
“Why not?”
She piped in. “I think it’s a cool idea, honey. Be nice to the guy, okay?”
“I’m not being rude.” He pushed back, and then turned to me. “You can take it, right?”
“I mean, yeah, talk to me straight. I’m just trying to understand your perspective. What is it about what I’m doing that you don’t agree with?”
She sipped her beer again and eyed him nervously. I kept a soft expression on my face, slowed my breathing, and nodded gently as he spoke so he knew I was really listening.
“Those conversations are sacred. You don’t get to just talk about that stuff with anyone. And you’re out there acting like that doesn’t matter.”
“Ahh cool, man. I appreciate you sharing that. I see where you’re coming from.”
“Well? What do you have to say to that?” he demanded an answer, and she started to speak.
“I don’t think he’s—”
“Wait. Don’t interrupt me. I want to hear his answer,” he instructed. She shrunk back into her seat.
I took an intentional pause to slow the conversation.
“I agree the conversations are sacred. And I can understand that you experience them as rare. I think a lot of people have the same experience you do. And I think that’s why they get excited when someone comes along who doesn’t find them rare, and actually enjoys them, and actually encourages them, so that they become less rare. People who are passionate or frustrated, and that’s a lot of us, are often looking for space to connect with people. And it’s not like I’m developing these really intense relationships with people. It’s turned out to be far more about the ideas than about me, or even about them. The ideas just happened to mean something to both of us, and then we get to benefit from the conversation and go our separate ways. I guess I’d just say that it can take a little practice to make these conversations more available to you, but they don’t have to be rare. And I appreciate you sharing.”
“Dude, can you stop talking like that and just be straight with me?” He was getting more irritated. She was shifting uncomfortably in her seat.
I didn’t expect that. “Talking like what?”
“Just talk normally, like, how guys talk.”
“Honestly, this is just how I talk. I don’t think I’m smarter than you. I think we just talk about different things. I’m actually as straight with you as I can.” At this point, I realized that we were past the point of idle conversation. There was some thinly veiled rage and fear at this table, and for whatever reason, I’d chosen to sit here, and I happened to represent the perfect trigger for their individual and collective dynamics to become quickly inflamed. This wasn’t about my writing, my podcast, social media, frilly table cloth, or my strange clothes.
“Listen, where I grew up in rural Ontario, nobody talks like that. And we don’t just talk about all that stuff with just anyone.”
“Ok,” I nodded. I’d become aware that as much as I felt articulate, my words were sometimes a little inaccessible. That’s a gap I take responsibility for bridging, and his frustration with my word choice and approach was something that I could leverage to understand how to better connect with him. “Alright, thanks for calling me out on that.”
“Maybe we should just go, honey.”
He turned towards her, incredulous at her suggestion. “What? I’m fine! I’m not going anywhere. I still have a beer to finish. I’m going to the bathroom.” His glass hit the table with a loud rap and he huffed off to the bathroom, leaving her shyly glancing at me. The bartender came over and asked us if everything was alright, and I assured her we were just fine. I took an audible deep breath and let the girlfriend decide the next move.
“I like what you’re saying. I think it’s a cool idea. I definitely want to read more books about this kind of stuff. Sometimes he… I just don’t think he talks about this stuff much. It’s hard to get him to open up about things sometimes. He’s not usually like this, you know? But anyways, he’s always reminding me not to be so nosy with people, so I probably shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”
I nodded in neutral acknowledgement. “Here’s an exercise that might be a helpful place to get started. Take it or leave it, but this just came to me. Tomorrow, take a piece of paper and a pencil, and write down your weaknesses and flaws that come to mind, at least five or six of them.” She nodded, replaying them in her brain, and I continued. “Then, go about living your life for a while, and notice who in your life keeps telling you the same things you wrote down. Finally, start considering the fact that none of those things are actually problems, and that you’re actually stifling skills with shame. Then, ask yourself, when you hear them telling you about your failures, whether those people are helping you or holding you back. Would you even think that you had that flaw unless they kept telling you?”
Her gaze dropped to her glass for a moment. “He’s a good guy. I care about him a lot.”
“I know you do, and I think that’s wonderful. As long as you’re happy and learning the whole time, then enjoy the ride. There’s always value in the hard conversations, but you have to be looking for the value. And the reality is, he wants to have deeper conversations, but it’s deeply uncomfortable for him, and so he’s protecting himself by fighting and escaping the emotional discomfort. This is actually just good practice for us both, and you can blame it all on me later tonight if you want.”
He returned, watching us closely as he approached. “What were you talking about?” She tensed and fixed her eyes on her glass.
I turned to him with a relaxed smile. “I was just saying how much I appreciate this conversation with you both. I can tell this frustrates you, but you’re also the one asking me the questions, and you’re sticking with it when we could just turn the other way. I think you’re thinking about some really important things.”
“I’m not frustrated. I’m totally fine. I’ve just been trying to get a straight answer out of you for the last hour and you aren’t making any sense.”
“Alright,” I started slowly, “but I want us to try this a different way. You’re sitting here with clenched fists. The bartender is looking nervously over here. I notice that pretty much every time your girlfriend speaks, you’re interrupting her, which is interesting considering you told her earlier that she was interrupting you. I think it’s safe to say the vibe here is not the way it started out. I think we need to agree to give people a chance to speak when they have something to say, and then make sure we understand them before we respond.”
“I do not interrupt her. You need to take that back. She can speak whenever she wants. I don’t tell her what to do! She’s her own person.”
“Honey, sometimes…”
“What?”
“Sometimes, you do interrupt me. I think I have more to share. But I understand. It’s okay.”
I watched the wonderfully demonstrated dynamic of a ‘fight/flight’ survival response play out against the ‘freeze/appease’ and recognized that, as gentle and constructive as I was trying to be, this was only escalating.
“Fine.” He grunted. “I still just want an answer to my question.”
“I’m sorry that I’m not quite capturing what you’d like to ask me. Can you repeat it once more so I can do my best to answer it?”
“Like…what I’ve been saying the whole time… I just don’t think you should be having conversations with strangers and then putting it on the internet.”
“it’s a valid concern, and it’s something I think about a lot. Reality is, the people know they are being recorded, most of the deeper conversations will have their approval before they are released, and occasionally I’m changing names and details for the stories I write about anyways. But I didn’t get your question there.”
“That was my question.”
“That was an opinion, my man. There wasn’t a question mark anywhere to be found.”
He pounded the table with his fist, his face turning purple. “I should drag you outside and pound your face in right now.”
I intentionally cradled my cheek in my hand, elbow on the table, and gave him a small smile and then looked at my nearly empty glass, giggling. “We could go outside, you could pound my face in, and I wouldn’t even take a swing at you.” I put up my hands in a relaxed surrender. “Then, we’d have to come back in, sit down, finish our beers, and talk about what just happened. Honestly, it would probably ruin your night more than mine.”
He didn’t know what to do, so I instantly put the ball back in his court. “Is that how you guys handled conflict in southern Ontario?”
“Well yeah! It’s hockey boys and truckers. If we need to blow off some steam, you go outside, beat the shit out of each other, and then forget the whole thing.” He was still exasperated, but my face was still intact.
“And do you think it works? Like, do you ever come to a good solution afterwards?”
“I don’t know, man. I don’t think about these things. You’re telling me you don’t fight?”
“I punched a substitute teacher at private school in grade five. He was trying to teach us poetry during math class and I refused to participate. He wouldn’t let me leave the classroom at the end of the day, so I punched him in the stomach. He was too fat to feel it and I was too skinny to hurt him. Don’t think I’ve fought anyone since then. I guess that’s why I had to get good with words, hey?”
Two bartenders came over and looked at him, saw how calm I was, and looked at how tense he was. They couldn’t decide what to do. “Do you guys need the bills and maybe some waters?”
I turned back to the couple, awaiting their answer. A few nervous glances from the other patrons around the brewery told me that this was becoming a disturbance. I subtly rested a hand on my stomach, breathed deeply, and smiled.
“No. let’s get another round.” Leaving for him would have been giving up. I respected his persistent, clumsy curiosity.
“Babe. Come on. We should go. We can just forget about this whole thing. It’s not worth it. We can just go home, relax, and…”
“I’m fine.” He rolled his eyes. “let’s get one more round. Three more beers please.”
The bartenders looked at me. I smiled and nodded. I was supremely exhausted, and fighting an adrenaline rush at the prospect of all-out violence, but I was determined to keep my exterior calm and see this through. “If you’re buying my beer, I’ll get another one.”
He nodded. “The third one is for you.”
“Okay. One more round and then we’ll bring you the bills.” The bartenders gave the look of disapproving parents. The boyfriend stared at the empty glass, clutching it and rolling the base of it in a circle on the table. It had already been nearly two hours of going in circles, but this was practice as much for me as it was exploration for them.
“You need to take back what you said about me interrupting my girlfriend. I’m not a bad guy.”
“You’re not a bad guy. You’re uncomfortable with this conversation, and the anger you’re experiencing is leading you to want to control the situation, by subduing me and silencing her, and even changing the subject or walking away. But through your anger, the curiosity keeps winning, and there’s clearly something about what I’m doing that you want to understand, and I’m sticking this out with you until we get there. But I’m not the bad guy either. Your judgement isn’t really about me, and it's really just telling me about you – what you like and what you think of the world. We’re just three people trying to figure something out together. And by the way, this would make a great podcast episode, if you decide you want to meet up tomorrow and talk about it.” It felt like a bit of a jab, but a little sting keeps us on the trail through the trees.
“Oh, I’d go on your podcast!” she smiled nervously.
“No, we’re not interested,” he said flatly.
I smiled and shrugged. “Just sayin’, this is important for me, too. Thanks for sticking with it.” The beers arrived with the bills, and I offered a cheers. “Thanks for the beer.”
A few minutes later, after changing the subject and all of us taking a moment to collect ourselves, he re-engaged. “Okay,” He said gruffly. “Stand up.” He pushed his stool back and rose to his feet.
I didn’t know what would happen next, but getting punched in the face would make for a good story, so I stood up. Several people swivelled their heads in our direction. I really didn’t care what happened. This was too juicy.
He towered above, looking me straight in the eye. “I owe you an apology. I guess that where I grew up, people don’t talk like you, and so it kind of pisses me off. I guess I didn’t really understand what you’re doing and maybe I need to learn a little more about how to open up about personal things. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.” He stretched out his arms and offered a hug, which I happily accepted. The bartenders watched on from a distance, confused.
When we sat back down, the girlfriend was stunned. I don’t think she’d ever seen things play out this way. This whole conversation hadn’t gone the way any of us expected, and, each in our own way, we were a little overwhelmed and worn out.
“This was the most anger I’ve received in nine states and hundreds of conversations.” I said. It probably wasn’t necessary, but we were past the emotion and into the reflection state. “But it’s not your fault. You weren’t raised any different than you were raised, and this society itself feeds on anger and into depression. You’ve got a bit of a battle ahead of you to change how you handle conflict, but it’ll help you create the kind of relationship you both want.”
She nodded and bounced her eyes back and forth between us.
‘And on the flip side, you articulated a lot of things other people might feel, and by sticking it out with you, it kind of forced me to face up to the judgements that still cling to me. My goal is to be able to communicate with anyone about their human experience, and that means I have to find the words that resonate for you. It’s those skills that are going to create the mutual understanding we need more of in the world.” We clinked glasses one last time, I took a sip of beer, and then decided I was done. “I think I’m out of here. You two have a good night.”
For two hours, it felt like I’d jumped into the ring with a bull, waving the flag for him to charge at but balancing that with the efforts to elude his mighty charges. I knew I was pushing him, simply by virtue of committing to my authenticity, and that I could learn to dance with this until the point where he had exhausted himself and was ready to talk.
The ‘bull’ metaphor feels adversarial, though, and so I’m loathe to visualize it as if I was consciously taunting him and he was too dumb to catch me. It’s not that at all. It is that I understood that any fear or defensiveness on my part was my own shortcoming, and that the longer I could stay in the ring, the more likely he would be to finally stop fighting me long enough to confront his own fear. He had reacted to me no different than how most of us react to spiders. We want it to die and be gone, even if that means we have to hurt it. He was in survival mode, and I was the spider who convinced him to let me live. I was his bull, except that I started out wanting to talk about why we were in the ring, and he hadn’t met a talking bull, so he tried to kill it. We are afraid of our own death, and hearing people simple say certain words in a row to each other can feel worse than a mortal threat. Our bodies are just trying to survive, and everything offensive, controversial, or unfamiliar seems to first come under attack until we sit with it long enough to realize that there’s a better response.
In society today, I see the discourse primarily driven by fear. And fear doesn’t work on you once you’re not afraid. But once you become less fearful about inevitabilities such as death, your courage will be countercultural, and those who are afraid will easily vote against those who are more accepting of reality. When it becomes obvious that our subjective definition of death shapes our unique relationship with death, and that the pain and fear we experience is a product of a controllable mind, then the greatest fears and angers become diminished. I am not afraid of death, just as I am less afraid of spiders, just as I still face up the fear of rejection daily. We are moving along gradients in all areas of life from fear to acceptance, from anger to curiosity, from resentment to gratitude. Those who are angry and fearful are often loudest in society, because they are kicking and screaming as a very literal survival reaction. And I have compassion for those who are in the state of fear and anger that reinforces their need to have absolute control and certainty, which leads them to favour policy that restricts the natural born right to choose our actions free from coercion. But we have to fight for that right against the fear-machine that ignorantly or maliciously attempts to control us.
Consider the latest series of rulings that criminalizes abortion in some areas of the United States. Is that okay if I try to talk about it? The anti-abortion argument is not framed as “we are in favour of controlling a woman’s body.” The argument is framed as a repulsion to their believed reality that abortion is murder. Many people literally believe abortion is killing babies, and most of those people believe killing is wrong, just to get right down to it.
This restrictive legislation is based on the idea that we are killing our own species and that death is abhorrent and so it must not be legal. They want to control a woman’s right to murder a fetus the same way they want to control anyone’s right to murder anyone else. It’s not exactly the wildest reality to understand.
And on the other side, they aren’t supposing it’s murder or they aren’t supposing murder is the worst thing ever. So on the basis of terminating a pregnancy not being all that abhorrent, they fight for the right to not being oppressed by somebody else’s arbitrary moral absolutism. I guess it’s easy to pick a side when you believe one narrative or the other is true… but they’re both kind of just made up, you know? We’re talking about random topics without acknowledging that we’re simply confronting the ideas of free will choice and death and murder, and all of those offer no possibility of black and white. I happen to live in a strange reality where abortion is probably murder the way cutting down a tree is murder, or how a lion killing an antelope is murder, and how anything ending the life of anything else is murder. But then energy simply takes new form, so what can die, exactly? And if the death happens, it is simply part of the cycle of life. We can just as easily call it the cycle of death, but we cannot see that side of the moon.
Abortion is something our species does and always has done, whether or not rules were in place. Legislating against something that so many species of the planet do in some fashion is not addressing the underlying causes and how we can properly minimize what we don’t like, at its source. Making things illegal doesn’t make people make better choices. It just makes desperate people criminals. If we want less abortions (which I think everyone agrees on, right?) then we’ll have to look further upstream to find the real reasons and solutions for why abortions are happening in the first place.
Two interesting notes: First, the American Christian rightwing conservative types, you know, the ones with Ford Lincolns and cowboy hats and leatherbound bibles, want to ban abortion, ban comprehensive sex education, and condemns extramarital sex. If that isn’t a fear response to your entire when you’re afraid of sex and death, I don’t know what is. Second, the covid mortality rate (including all the normal comorbities like cancer, strokes, diabetes, and so forth) are eerily similar. It just might be possible that we’re being told to fear death and then look to the margins of our statistical reality and react to to things that are almost certainly not the biggest problems (and in fact are only the symptoms of the larger and very legalized problems).
Covid arguments are parallel. The solution wasn’t legislating mandatory vaccines and drastic social and criminal punishment for failing to comply with reactive and irrational lockdown policies that crippled small business, mental health, and further exacerbated our cultural fear of death. Bodily autonomy, once again, pitted against our cultural aversion to death, and we’re back to the same place. Policies forcing people into doing things to their body or banning them from doing others is a great way to measure our societal intolerance of death, and therefore life itself. We then create our own problems by reacting from a survival state to these issues — right at their climax— and fail to address the root causes of why those problems came to be in the first place. The same system of experts creates endless toxic pollution to our nature and our bodies and our minds, and that’s the part we just call ‘systemic’ and shake our heads at the tragedy of it all.
Basically, here’s the deal: Even if abortion is murder, death isn’t immoral. We just don’t like it. Death is simply beyond the edge of the ‘known’ because death is transcending the edge of consciousness – of knowing itself. To die is to transcend consciousness. Morality itself only exists as a conscious construct, insofar as we think we can know right and wrong. When we die, morality evaporates. There’s absolutely no reason to assume otherwise. Morality is just a cosmic daydream that we are lost in for a moment. So then, the fear of death is only rational, inasmuch as we fear the unknown. If we are afraid of the unknown, death is the most frightening of tragedies.
If we learn to accept the unknown as a part of our current reality, like getting used to spiders living in our house, then we tend to need to control less. We can then release much of the control we are fighting for in life because we recognize that the control we were chasing is an illusion. And once death is not frightening and not immoral, we recognize exactly what we do have control over: our thoughts (and at minimum our response to them), our emotions (or at minimum our responses to them), our words, our actions, and our responses to the words and actions of others. We are not in control of, and should not feign to justify control over, other people’s bodies. We aren’t, and we shouldn’t be, for seizing control is fearful grasping at an illusion. Once again, we arrive at the reality that seizing control is a fear response, much like clutching for tree branches as you slide down a steep hill. I do not blame them for the fear response, just as I do not blame the tree for having its branches bent and broken. The tree was simply being a tree. The afraid were simply trying to survive and ensure the survival of those around them.
Whether we consider either the collective or the individual under greater attack in our society, are we aware that we actually all want the same things?
We don’t actually want to force people to do things, and because we don’t want to be controlled by the fear responses of others. We don’t want to ban things and segregate people. We want people to feel physically, emotionally, and socially empowered enough to share what isn’t working or doesn’t make sense so that we can meet them where we are at. We don’t want to cancel and shame people. It’s just not fun. It’s not productive. It’s a bad look, you know? Outlawing abortions does nothing to solve the problem of why the abortions were the desperately needed solution in the first place. Mandating vaccines does nothing to solve the problem of why we have such weakened immune systems from some companies and yet infatuation with the ideal of longevity from other companies. These policies and marketing schemes are fear responses, by the collective, against the collective; by the individual, against the individual. The real loss of autonomy is not seeing how we are being played by ourselves. We only fail ourselves when we resort to domination of the other in favour of some imaginary ideal.
Beliefs are nothing more than thoughts you like having. And we all like different things. It’s as true as it is inevitable: diversity of opinion cannot be extinguished.
My goal, was to see this man for how we was lost in the forest of fear, parachute through the trees to land beside him, point out how lost he was by ruffling a couple feathers, show him how he was trying to blame the trees, and then walk out together, having both learned something beautiful. It’s not so I can say I was right. It’s so we can all learn to get along. Fear leads to anger, which leads to reactionary grasping for control, which leads to further fear when we discover the control was always an illusion. Are you following what I’m saying? I’m trying to say the same thing in multiple ways, and some of them more succinct, in hopes that you can piece it together like Ikea furniture in your minds, too. I don’t need you to agree, I just desire to be understood.
I’m saying that I loved him, as I love everyone, and I desire that embodiment of joy to be my normal baseline. Not that I’m perfect, and I am not fearless, but I hold myself to an ideal that I often attain: unconditional love, just as the same as non-contextual joy. Yes, I fall short, but the standard we set matters that we may learn to reach it quicker and more often. That mental state of emanating peace and embracing effortlessness somehow changes how I see the landscape. I see the trees as his triggers, the forest as his fear, and the way out requires falling in love with the adventure of learning how to navigate your way through it all.
I’m saying that his emotional reactions to my random string of words gave me the map of his mind that I knew how to read. At risk of being his punching bag, I wanted to see if I could walk us both out of that black forest together. Why? For his benefit, perhaps. For mine, perhaps. Really, because I see a whole world operating from a place of fear and survival mentality, through no fault of their own, and we need to learn how to face up to the discomfort we have around things like death. When you add in our compulsion to avoid our fears, it means we only confront death in crisis mode – when we are forced to acknowledge the consequences of our individual and collective actions, or punished by the media with stories that imply we are in danger of the wrong things. We eat and drink and abuse ourselves to the brink of death and, only then, do we look around and abhor the injustice of the inevitable while failing to take responsibility for the choices we made that got us here, and our duty to inspect the integrity of the leaders who benefit greatly from the messaging.
I don’t think we should force people to get vaccinations or eat GMO, and I don’t think we should ban cigarettes or abortions. Control, control, control, control. I think we should look at the common ground we all share: we want policy that lets us easily choose to be healthy, and to make decisions from a place of emotional and physiological wellbeing, and to protect the wellbeing of the rest of the planet. And that requires the freedom to choose, to speak, to try, to fuck up, to learn, and to contribute to the world around them from a place of love. It’s never love if you’re not free, just as loving others is setting them free. I was free to leave the bar, just as he was free to leave, and yet we both chose to stay in the ring, traipse through the trees, and, eventually, find mutual understanding. I’m just as proud of him as I am of myself, and I’m absolutely convinced it’s the path forward to truly raising the calibre of every difficult conversation we collectively need to have.
A few days later, I set up my podcast table at Coal Harbour along the sea wall. I didn’t want to, but I did. It didn’t feel comfy or fun or inspiring, but I warmed into it quickly once I’d committed to being the same me and seeing how the city responded.
It’s not that they were the enemy. It’s that I was terrified that the stream of rejection and misery would make me forget my truth, that I’d get sucked into the story of who they think I am. And then I realized that I was just getting stuck in the story of who I thought I was, right then. I didn’t even know what I was. I don’t need to know what I am. I simply need to move towards what energizes me. I simply needed to leave the door open to connection with anyone who expressed anything along the spectrum of frustration to passion, and learn to meet them there. I could bring the people who needed to explore, and help them more deeply, by cultivating my non-contextual joy and allowing them to feel it as unconditional love. I just had to keep showing up, and when I found them, wander through the trees alongside them, that we may fall in love with the forest together.