There are three fundamental truths:
We all want to love and be loved.
People will be disappointed in you. You will be disappointed by others, and you will be disappointed in yourself.
And there will be loss.
If you examine the drive, the thrust, the stockpiling, the desire, the accumulation, it will reveal that our lives are consumed with finding love and avoiding disappointment. We all have our solutions and strategies for these very human needs: the avoidance of one and the need for another.
Understanding the human condition and our own condition gives us an acceptance and context for finding liberation and contribution in how we walk through this life.
In the animal kingdom and among known phyla, there is an ontological truth to every species. There is a leopardness, a monkeyness, an elephantness. We are the only species who buck the system. We usually want to be everything other than ourselves.
We organize around initiatives that attempt to contort our true essence.
In a long life, you get to experience, observe, and hopefully learn a few things along the way. There are many tributes and life lessons that have been imparted by great people. I continue to simplify the lessons. I attempt to live a reductive life that allows for a life filled with joy.
To laugh heartily every day and to see the absurdity of it all has been a mainstay.
To weep and feel the heartbreak in equal measure.
To have great resilience.
And show up every day as if it’s the first day.
So many great things have been said by so many diverse people. Through the optics of their lives and areas of creativity and concern, they distill their experience into a quote, a life lesson, a parable.
There are so many things that we are not going to do, that we are not going to master, but we are certainly grateful to those who have put in the time, and we receive the benefit.