Dear Starlight,
What if you already are everything you're searching for? But there's a curse—an invisibilia that clouds your vision, so you can't see that what you desire has been yours all along.
Just like a fairytale, some little wise creature tells you this fact as you scurry by them. You’re busy looking for what you think you are missing.
They can see you. They tell you they see you, the You you desire to be.
Do you believe them?
Or do you run on, "Sorry, no time, I'm too busy looking for myself. I've got to go, I think need to work harder and be better now so I can become who I'm supposed to be tomorrow. Someday, I'm going to be doing what I want to be doing and be who I want to be if I just keep doing this thing now, it will pay off, you'll see."
You run on.
The little creature shakes its head and mutters under its breath, "Geesh, these humans think they are everything other than what they are."
Imagine stopping for a moment—listening, hearing what the little creature says.
What would you do then? Give up on a future that's forever over a disappearing horizon? Or would you embrace the truth: that you already are who you wish to be, and in doing so begin enjoying what the day offers you?
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What if you stop paying a price today for a future that you will never recognize?
What are you wrongly sacrificing for a future illusion?
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I don't know if this is my question alone. Is it?
If it's not, and you can relate, then I am wondering if this is a collective curse of deception with deep roots of evil malevolence.
Just wondering…
And then I think of my brilliant six-year-old niece, who lives without this curse—at least for now.
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She astonishes me with her verve and delight with life and herself (most days). She swivels seamlessly between her curiosity, expression, and comfort. She plays HARD, wiping herself out at the end of each day.
Adults in the room look at her and start listing off what she can grow up to be.
She is a scientist with a penchant for insects and water creatures. She raises butterflies, and sits at the water's edge to catch newts.
She's a singer bellowing magical made-up melodies.
She's a dancer eager to jump, swirl, improvise an elephant, or jump like a kangaroo.
She's a cartographer drawing new worlds tirelessly.
She's a storyteller making up stories that go on and on.
She's an actress performing her wild stories throughout the living room, oops, I mean stage.
She's a designer sewing little outfits and wearing her hair in peculiar braids with ribbons of color woven in.
She's an architect building dazzling castles using innovative and recycled materials.
Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.
**Side note that she's also good at self-care: She takes bubble baths that smell good, wears only soft clothes, eats what she wants to eat, and tells her mom when she's tired.
Watching my niece—alive with curiosity, fearlessly embracing who she is—reminds me that we all begin this way. She is everything she wants to be in the moment: a scientist, an artist, a singer. Not one thing, but all herself. If you ask her what she is or what she does, she will tell you her name and that she plays. Her ambitions aren't a distant horizon but a present reality. She simply is everything she wants to be doing.
Okay, Eden, I know. Childhood naivety… but she is what I call an artist. (By the way, I call all people artists.) Artists are alive with curiosity and creativity moving towards questions that beckon them.
Pause. That word. Question. Quest. I. On.
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People ask each other "What do you do?"
They are trying to locate you on the great career and vocational map. At best, they are looking for a connection point but unfortunately, when we ask, 'What do you do?' we're really asking, 'What are you worth in the eyes of the system?'
What if we started every encounter with one another from a starting point that we are all artists, that we all are valuable, and that we all need to piece together a life—but what might connect us is our quests?
What if today your quest demanded you made a map, but tomorrow you dug the deepest hole. Does either action define your practice or make you more or less valuable? Part of your purpose, yes, but the practice suits the need of the moment.
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What's your current quest? Not your job, not the title you've been given—but the call that wakes you each morning. What are your guiding questions? Maybe it's time to stop searching for what we should be and instead, start living as who we already are and always were.
Maybe when we run past that creature, we can stop asking: "Can you tell me what I should be doing or where to go to find myself? And instead we run by only to catch the ball, the butterfly, or the sunset… we run towards that thing that brings us joy and sometimes that’s our cozy bed. Yes, we can run into bed and let our dreams help answer our questions too.
PS. This little video passed me by yesterday, resonating with play…
*Martha Beck, that is, speaks of cultural cover stories
Yesterday, we had a little gathering at my house for sukkot. Some friends met for the first time. I said, “Try to guess what she does,” and one person took a long look at this other person and replied, “Hmmm, aerial yoga instructor?” “So close” I replied. She is actually a scribe by profession; she writes and repairs Torah scrolls. Then it became a game to guess whatever everyone did to earn their keep. This is a dreaded question for me, as I feel I have spent 20 years trying to make my outside match my inside. It’s true that I hate being asked, “What do you do?” But I actually love to ask the question. Martha talks about cultural cover stories and this is how I think of jobs and the way we talk about them. I am more interested in the tone of the response than the actual answer. really what I am asking is, how have you figured out how to do work in the world and does it match all the dreamy, changing, inner-workings happening inside of you? I am asking do you have an answer to this question and if so, what is your relation to the answer?