I recently had a book review published in a Florida newspaper.

While I’ve had other publishing credits to my name (see the body of work on this site), this one stands out because I often hear about “right place and right time” as an attribute to breakthroughs and success.

It’s usually put forward as a one-time deal. A person just happens to be at a particular place in the universe at precisely the right moment and everything took off after that. If you’re a lottery winner—absolutely.

However, reality is way more nuanced.

I met the author/magician in that article almost fifteen years ago and have been writing, publishing and working on my craft for close to twenty years at this point. Had I met him just now, or had he wanted this review when we first met, this offer wouldn’t have happened.

While I’ve missed opportunities in the past, the key, as I’ve learned, is to keep plugging away because there are no guarantees for the future. Sometimes a right connection is made at the right moment, but that moment requires a deep history behind it.

So it’s kind of true, but you simply can’t just show up without having done the work.

And if you want to stay relevant, you have to keep putting in the work.

I have a joyous vocation that is difficult at the onset, which is convincing students of the relevance of Religion in their lives (or at least society).

As this was my thesis, it continues to be my mission and each year, a little more progress is made. I’m always humbled at the number of students who send me a note afterwards to express how much they enjoyed the class and how they’re still thinking about it.

The aim is to get them seeking and questioning, finding their path and keeping their heart open along the way. I promise no answers.

However, there’s one one issue that continues to plague me. The number of young people (in North America) in the churches are on a steep decline, and have been for quite some time. My classroom may be their only contact with Religion, which is why I treat this as a serious responsibility.

However, where do I send them afterwards?

Where can they go?

Understanding every person eventually finds their own way (hopefully), a young impressionable person can be seriously harmed if they look in the wrong place.

And right now, there are a lot of wrong places.

I’m watching my own tradition denigrate itself into a breeding ground of partisan politics, completely losing sight of what separated itself from society in the first place. Spoiler alert: it was their followers reaching out to the margins of society and helping people that everyone else ignored.

So where to next?

Right now, I just don’t know.

I hated doing the dishes. There was something about them that held a repulsive barrier to my sensibilities of cleaning up after a meal.

It got to the point where I’d leave them piled until a girl I dated would come over as she loved doing them.

Then something changed.

Doing the dishes stopped becoming a chore and become a meditative exercise. A time for prayer.

A psychological feeling of freedom: life might be chaotic and the home may be in disarray, but there’s one external thing I can control—clearing the sink.

It’s a small feeling that life can make sense.

Even for a moment.

According to Bertrand Russell, one of the biggest sources of our unhappiness is a complete focus on ourselves.

It’s the hyper-attention to our flaws, our sins and our shortcomings. It’s the endless pursuit of obsessing over these negative black holes that we spend our waking hours trying to overcome them… or numb them from our minds.

And even though he wrote this close to a hundred years ago, humans haven’t changed much. We see this focus on the self on a much grander scale today, but we also see a smaller, counter-narrative:

the many communities of people helping each other out.

It seems we’re in a weird tension of time where we’re miserable with ourselves, but quick to respond to those in need.

I suppose the big question is, which one will prevail?

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco

I purposefully plan side tangents in my lessons. When it seems to my students that I’m going off script, it’s all been planned in detail.

It needs to be done because the off moments are what stand out. They draw our attention and get us to listen closely.

They also tend to be short and simple to process, sticking with you for long periods of time.

What makes them interesting is they’re hard-earned by the giver, but feel like throwaway comments in retrospect to everything else that person knows. And yet, it’s the scraps that form us.

You’d think magicians would be the best at keeping secrets, considering it’s their life. But, offer them enough money and they would be happy to sell you what they know.

The joke among them is if you want to keep anything a secret, publish it in a book.

This adage is just as true now as when it was first said. Consider this site with my “bite-size mornings” (as a reader coined these posts… which I think I should adopt because I like it).

I average approximately 70,000 words a year on these posts,
which is the length of a book, or even two smaller ones.

While there are no big secrets I am writing about here, if I were to string these ideas together in a book, none of my words would be read. This is actually wonderful news because all these posts are independent thoughts and would be horrible as a narrative.

Each one gets to stand on its own and be given consideration as a completely isolated thought by a worldwide audience. It’s a magnificent leap forward from our mostly information deprived ancestors.

It’s also wonderful because if I wanted to write about all my secrets, a published book is still the best place to keep them.

If you don’t believe me, just ask a poet.

Recently, I had the joy of visiting my family and friends, which is something long overdue and exciting… given the current situation in the world.

My longtime friend surprised me with video footage of us from high school (and just beyond). It was hilarious looking back, and a sad reminder that I was a lot dumber than I thought.

However, I really wish I could’ve told my past self to relax.

I would’ve told him:

The things you were worked up about,
anxious about,
events you were catastrophizing…

just relax.

Most of what you think is important won’t even hit the radar screen of your life in a few years.

You’re young, ambitious and hopelessly idealistic: use that to get what you want, ignore just about everyone else and set your own path.

There’s no need to impress anyone because they really don’t care. Any attempts to do so will just come across as you trying too hard anyway.

Things are better than you think and guess what?
They will continue to get better (in many ways—not all).

Just relax.

~~~

While I can’t go back and tell my younger self that right now, part of me feels my older self is telling that to me in this moment.

Let’s hope I can take my own advice.

It’s disorienting to show up with a particular mindset about something, only to have the situation change. You expect one thing, get thrown many curveballs and then it’s time to adapt.

If you don’t anticipate things could change, it can throw you off completely; ruin the experience. It can get in your head and fester.

This is even worse when a plan is in place.

Adapting quickly is a skillset that can get you through the situation, but serves a higher purpose: it gets you to face reality for what it is instead of what you want it to be.

In a world experiencing unprecedented changes, being able to adapt, learn and adjust can help us face the problems at our doorstep. It can also wake us up to the fact that some things aren’t as bad as we perceive them to be.

The promise of our accelerated communications technology was to create an inter-connected world.

Inter-connected.

Connection.

Yet, with all the technology available at our disposal, and all the social media outlets to choose from, how connected do we really feel?

Why do so many people still feel isolated during our pandemic lockdowns?

Yes, we have easier (and better) ways to stay in touch with people, but ease of communication does not mean ease of connection. People stay connected through concerted efforts and genuine interest; not haphazardly hitting heart and like buttons on random posts.

Real conversations are messy, raw and unfiltered. They are not carefully curated caricatures of ourselves speaking with presentation layers of other people. After all, we crave those wild dinner parties where anything goes, not chit-chat as we pass each other on the street.

The means of communication is easier, but actual connection is hard.

Anybody stating otherwise is telling a lie.

But is there someone who already has?

Is the effort to re-invent the wheel worth the tradeoff of simply asking, or referencing, somebody else? And even if you do figure it out, are you the best person to do it?

There’s a finite time we have in life and an unlimited source of knowledge at our fingertips.

To help us out, we should ask what is the limit of what we can do and what limits are we willing to break ourselves.

If we’re honest about both, we can save the limited, precious resource of time that we have.