Slanted is Better

‎"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --"

 -Emily Dickenson

I give consent

“No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests that the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it… All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.”

- Barbara Brown Taylor, from An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

Originality & Truth

"No [person] who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work's sake, and what [people] call originality will come unsought." - C.S Lewis

I wouldn't say I value originality all that much... but I do value "truth"... whatever it is. When I was younger, I thought seeking truth was a cerebral endeavor. One in which I had to think through things enough until a moment of clarity struck me that made the entire world make sense. Anyone who knew me in High School and College can attest to my over-thinking ways.

 I don't think as much as I used to. In part because adult life is far too busy for the kind of existential pondering I used to regularly engage in. But more importantly, I no longer find "thinking" a credible means to truth.

Telling the truth the best way I can means experiencing it fully, with my heart, soul, and mind. I want to tell the truth, but I still have trouble working it all out. The principles and thoughts I mentally constructed from years past are hitting the hard, hot, pavement of reality. Some of them fit nicely while other ones have shattered. Some are still being stretched and squeezed in hopes of coming together whole. As the world has changed, so have I. As my relationships have changed, so have I.

Truth is looking for the consistent in an always changing world. The same holds true for my own identity. So it is time to take a new survey of my values and beliefs and rediscover what it means for the way I live my life.

I don't care if what comes out is original or not. Rather, I hope it resonates. I hope what I teach and share echoes with the centuries of truth-seekers before me and carry will carry on to future generations.

Truth is not an individual enterprise. It is collective.

Please, let's do this together.

Art works on you in the silence... so shut up.

"Yes, the highest things are beyond words. That is probably why all art aspires to the condition of wordlessness. When literature works on you, it does so in silence, in your dreams, in your wordless moments. Good words enter you and become moods, become the quiet fabric of your being. Like music, like painting, literature too wants to transcend its primary condition and become something higher. Art wants to move into silence, into the emotional and spiritual conditions of the world. Statues become melodies, melodies become yearnings, yearnings become actions."

- Ben Okri