What would your life look like as a comic book? Oops, sorry, I mean graphic novel. How would the first page unfold?

Would you start at birth, showing your humble upbringing as you learned about your secret past?

Or perhaps you’d start the story in high school getting picked on by the bullies. Then one day you ate a genetically modified ear of corn and developed your super powers. Now you spend your evenings fighting crime as Maize Man (Or Maize Girl)…

Would the comic book be boring? Or exciting? Would your book become a collectors edition? Or pass out of print and into obscurity?

It might interest you to know, that nobody else has lived your life, and nobody ever will.

You are unique and you aught to be in comics. No one else can tell your story.

It’s possible that you’ve never been addicted to crack cocaine and overcome it.

You may never have been kidnapped by the mafia and lived to tell the tale.

It’s possible that you haven’t battled for your life surrounded by enemy soldiers and overcome the odds.

But maybe you have.

Or maybe your story is more important.

Maybe your story is the one that will inspire a single individual to look at the world a different way and realize they have value. Maybe in telling your story you can change the world for just a single individual. And for that dramatic change isn’t it worth putting yourself out there?

The neat thing is that it’s really not your responsibility to judge what your story can do, it’s your job to tell it. Because nobody else can.

And it is also possible that your story, in the telling, will change you.

One thing that I’ve always been amazed by is the impact of pain and guilt on the human mind. It is segregating and isolating and makes us feel alone. We lead ourselves to the assumption that we are alone. That nobody else would ever make the same mistakes that we have, or be flawed enough to fall into the same pits that we have.

Telling your story can open the world up. Because you will find out that you are not alone. And the people that hear your story will also learn that they are not alone.

Just look around at the world and you will find groups of people bound together over the most obscure things you can imagine. And the common thread that brought them together, is that somebody talked. Somebody was bold enough to step out and say “I do this, and enjoy it”, or in some cases “I am this way, and would like help”.

So a challenge for you, or perhaps you can look at it as an opportunity, is to find your medium. Where should your story be told? Do you want to talk to one individual at a time? Or perhaps a graphic novel is in your future. Maybe you should tell your life through interpretive dance? Don’t be limited by the medium, find a format that allows you to reach out and make the effort to connect. It’s your story, tell it.

So when you feel alone and isolated and not sure who would understand, remember that there are millions out there feeling the same way and it’s all part of the process.

Now if I could just figure out how to activate my superpowers. (Maybe some more GMO tofu?)

Namaste,

Kevin

A friend of mine wrote a beautiful post about the reasons behind her move from San Francisco. In it she brought up several interesting points about community and spirituality. You can read the original post here.

The first idea that piqued my interest was the concept of the spiritual center of the world. It’s not uncommon to think of the eastern world and even to narrow it down as India being the spiritual center of the world. People often travel to India on spiritual quests for enlightenment, seeking the great mystics and guides that will aid on their path. What I found new to me was that the spiritual center of the world has shifted. Here is a quote from her post:

Not too long ago, I read an article by a travel writer from San Francisco who was told by several people on a trip to India that he was lucky to live in the “spiritual center of the earth.” This idea surprised him, as San Francisco is often described as quite secular, but as he asked around, he was told repeatedly that yes, for hundreds of years the spiritual center of the world was India, but now it’s San Francisco. The “spiritual center of the earth” was defined by a teacher as “the place where new ideas meet the least resistance.”

This last comment completely resonates with me, the spiritual center of the earth is the place where new ideas meet the least resistance.

In my mind dogma is enemy of spirituality. The moment you try to nail down higher spiritual concepts such as God or Spirit is the moment the mystery and awe begins to die. It becomes weakened because you have lost sight of the thing and are holding onto a metaphor that pales in comparison.

I believe this is why it outlawed in times passed to speak the name of God, familiarity leads to a sense of knowing that leads to presumption. Awe and Mystery require openness to new ideas and new interpretations of what we know, or more specifically what we thought we knew.

My friend also produced this little nugget.

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”

I love this thought.

As I was walking through the thoughts in my head tying these ideas together I realized I too seek to be at home wherever I am. And part of my quest, to be at home, is to not get tied down with dogma and weakened metaphors, but instead to be open to new ideas and new interpretations. For me to be the place where new ideas meet the least resistance.

It was then, that I realized, that the spiritual center of the world has shifted once again.

I am the spiritual center of the world.

And so are you.

Namaste,

Kevin

I have a standard loop for my dog walk in the mornings. There is a detour I can take through a cemetery. It’s the same distance, but it’s much more peaceful with the nice trees and I get away from all the cars on the roads. It’s peaceful there, as it should be.

Today, I came across a man I had seen before. He bikes over with a small bundle of flowers to a corner gravestone. He moves slowly on the bike and off, his aging joints supporting his strong frame, but he is not as young as he once was. He places the flowers down by the gravestone in a small vase, and then stands there with his hands clasped in front of him as he begins to talk. He’ll talk for a few minutes to the gravestone. I didn’t listen in, I didn’t want to be rude. From his demeanor and appearance, I can guess he’s updating someone about his day and his life and just talking through things.

It reminded me, in all the chaos and hectic frenzy that life throws at us, we sometimes forget that we are living. We forget how brief and beautiful this world is around us. We forget how precious and rare are the moments we share with those around us. And how, all too soon, we could be that old man with the flowers telling someone how much we miss them.

Life is a gift and our experience here is ours, no one else’s.

Don’t be robbed of your passion.

Don’t settle for someone else’s dream.

Don’t worry about what the future holds.

You are here now, embrace it and embrace those around you that you love.

Namaste,

Kevin

I came across a quote this morning that I can’t pass on sharing.

Selfishness is not living your life as you wish. It is asking others to live their lives as you wish. -Oscar Wilde

Wow! I really like this thought because it redirects the voice in my head that cautions me to not spend too much time on self development. The voice that grew from others telling me to not be self involved and spending time focused on your self… because it’s selfish.

In retrospect, and with the wisdom of this statement from Oscar Wilde, I can identify that the person giving me their “wisdom” was in fact being selfish. They were saying, “I disagree with your priorities, you should use my priorities instead.”

It’s taken me years to be okay with self development not being a form of narcissism. I remember asking in a yoga philosophy class, “Why are we spending all this time on self development and introspection when the world needs our help? Shouldn’t we be helping the world.” The answer I got was another powerful awareness shift for me. So powerful that I still remember vividly, 8 years later, as if I was sitting in from of the teacher asking again:

When seek to help the world, but we ourselves are a mess, we make the world a mess.

When we seek to be at peace and balance within ourselves, that radiates out to the world and helps the world approach peace and balance.

We must live our lives as we wish an seek balance in ourselves or we will only spread imbalance.

Go inside today. Seek peace. It’s not selfish, it is part of the great work we strive to accomplish in this life.

Namaste,

Kevin