A couple days ago I asked Rocky about a business idea to help pay for some family expenses.
She asked concerned, "Are you worried about money?"
For the first time in my life I responded, "I'm not worried about money any more."
I've moved into a mental space that is hard to explain.
It's like a free fall.
I feel like I'm falling through space and time like a leaf falling off a tree. Or maybe it's more like being a sledder on a luge track going faster and faster toward the way I am meant to go.
I become stronger the more I stop fighting and let go.
Fighting and pushing and pulling was how I lived my youth.
I was outraged. I was angry. I was a force of resistance.
Today I am free. Today I am resonating with my surroundings in a way that I never knew was possible.
I feel like a Tibetan singing bowl.
I feel like I am resonating with the harmonic overtones of the universe.
I have fallen into a worn path that is where I'm supposed to be. It's a feeling of rightness. It's a feeling of resonance.
It reminds me of the quote from the move The Matrix:
Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?
Morpheus: No, Neo. Im trying to tell you that when youre ready, you wont have to.
This is exactly how I feel.
I feel like I'm moving outside of everyday worries and fears and illusions.
I don't have to dodge bullets any more. Where I am today there are no bullets. The bullets were never there to begin with. There are no bullets.
And as I continue to move outside of this world I get to see others more clearly. I'm here to tell you: I see fear everywhere.
I see city officials afraid of appearances. I see homeless service providers afraid of losing money. I see apartment managers afraid of losing their contracts.
Fear is so all consuming in our world that it becomes invisible. It becomes the constant hum of existence.
For many people all of life is just dodging one bullet after another.
Who would we be if we weren't properly afraid?
Fear is considered an important part of life.
"It's fine if you want to be an artist. But you really should get an engineering degree just to be safe."
"Wanting to become a video game programmer is super competitive. You really should learn database programming just to be safe."
"You can't make money as a musician. You really should go into a field that has career potential just to be safe."
We are running for cover our entire lives.
From my experience, I've seen no evidence that defensive posture of existence does any good.
You can't escape the winds of misfortune no matter how hard you try.
But on the other side of existence I see the fearless.
I see photographers that don't shoot weddings "just to be safe"; they only shoot subjects that are meaningful to them.
I see musicians who give up tenure track "just to be safe" professor jobs to continue playing music in the field.
I see scholars with PhDs abandoning professor roles so they can work with dying hospital patients.
The most successful people I know are people that let go of "just to be safe" and free fall into the resonance of their true selves.
The secret to the game of life is to get back to God.
In our late teen years and early twenties the world mixes us up. It's like when they put a blindfold on the kid at a birthday party. They spin him around and then watch him try to find a pinata that is being pulled up and down on a rope. He waves his stick this way and that way rarely ever finding the pinata.
I sometimes imagine God being the kids at the party laughing as we all wander around blindfolded and dizzy trying to hit at a pinata that is nowhere to be found.
The blindfold is our fear. It clouds our view of truth. Fear adds layers of imaginary anxiety and worry on us keeping us farther and farther away from the path we were meant to be traveling.
I think God likes to see if we'll ever take off the blindfold. I sometimes imagine God seeing us like we see a reality TV show.
"No!!!! That person was so close and then they just went Looney Tunes crazy and got completely off track."
We get off track because of fear.
I listened to an interview of Barack Obama after he was president.
The interviewer asked him what was different now versus when he was president. He said, "Now, I'm not afraid anymore."
Losing fear is something that often happens after you've been so afraid you just get tired of being afraid anymore. The fear just gets wrung out of you.
Fear is an addiction. Eventually you get sick and tired of being sick and tired. You'll quit it if you finally get tired of how it makes you feel.
And quite honestly, I am sure I'll get sucked back down into the world of fear again. I'll probably slip up and fall off the wagon. Fear is that bottle of booze in your cupboard. It's just waiting for you to think you can't take it anymore. "I deserve to be afraid."
But I am here to tell you, the fear is the illusion. The lack of fear and the ability to let go is the truth.
You can only find your destiny when you let go, when you let the fear fade away. You can't see God when you're afraid.
And if you can't see God you can't see the path you are meant to be traveling.
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