The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

It’s a quote I first read in a fortune cookie as a teenager and was confused by it. The meaning flew over my head and the person who tried explaining it to me couldn’t bring the clarity I needed.

After many well intended thoughts of my own, life experience has made this proverb perfectly clear.

Now, more than ever, we are in a world that requires action.

Wanting to do something and thinking you should do it doesn’t actually get the job done. Committing to an action, on the other hand, without consideration of how it might be received also fails to do the job.

We are communicating in a world of half-truths, misinterpretations, poor reading skills and loss of tone over the written word.

What you want to say… what you mean to say… what you hope to get across… becomes irrelevant if the receiver interprets it wrong.

Since you can’t control the receiver, the best you can do is make sure your actions, and your message, is loud and clear.

Because that’s the only thing which you will be judged by in the end.

I remember the first time my dad saw grey hairs on my head. He wore a puzzled look on his face while giving it a close examination.

“Vito, grey hairs? Life isn’t that tough.”

Interesting for him to say that considering he immigrated to Canada and worked non-stop since he was seventeen to help provide for his family, then provide for the family he started. I know he went through a lot before and when he got here.

Looking back on it, I’m sure he was really telling me to relax. Take it easy.

Unfortunately, I’ve been caught up in a quest for meaning since my teenage years. It’s the question we all ask ourselves at one point:

What is the meaning of life?

Variations include what is the meaning of my life/the universe/all of this or substitute the word meaning for the word purpose.

I envy those for whom this is a passing question fo interest. Something that comes up on the radar screen periodically and then goes away, to be replaced by more important matters at hand.

Not me.

I’m in that category where the question drives a life-long obsession.

Although I cannot point to a particular event that caused this, my old friend and spiritual mentor made some pretty good guesses. Unfortunately, we never had the time to explore my origin story further and I’m stuck dealing with it.

This question for meaning is no doubt the primary driver over my study, fascination and practice of religion. It’s through it, I have been able to develop a language to speak about it.

In religious terms, the quest for meaning is known as the search. It’s seeking something.

While I would be happy to accept the conclusion of the many thinkers before me who pointedly arrived at an answer and proclaimed, “I got it! You can stop now.”… I can’t.

Their answers create more questions.

I can’t even say I’m farther along than when I started. My thought process has matured (thankfully), but it’s still not any clearer if I’ve arrived at any great conclusion.

It feels like inching farther along towards an infinite eternity, each step growing closer, but only made to realize the path is so much longer than you ever anticipated.

Perhaps there’s an expectation of what will be found at the end, when the reality is so much different.

Maybe my dad was right.

Or maybe we were never meant to solve that question in our lifetime.

Perhaps it’s my age catching up to me, but my taste for art has significantly changed. I say significantly, but it only seems that way in comparison to times past.

One could even argue this has always been a latent desire of mine, but I’m only getting honest about it now.

Normally, my go-to music for writing falls between playlists of ambient collections, coffee house artists/songs or simply a Portishead album (my first few books were written strictly listening to the Dummy album on repeat).

Now, I find myself diving into the depths of classical music. I’ve always skimmed the surface of its offerings, mainly from growing up with a sister who played piano and also from perusing movie scores for my magic shows.

However, for the focus I need to get work done, it’s the only genre that works for me now.

And every so often, I’m stopped in my tracks. There comes a composition so beautiful, so enticing, I have to stop and listen.

For instance, the title of this post points to a particularly powerful piece that had me stop and reflect on the nature of art; specifically, the nature of the artist.

When I listen to Barber’s Adagio for Strings, I ask myself, what was he thinking when he came to the blank page on this one?
What was he going through to mine such depth of emotion?
What part of him did he search that he refused to go to before?
What was he experiencing to want to deliver this to the world?

Just listening to it awakens something inside of you and while it may sound familiar to cinema goers (especially older wartime movies), it resonates.

In fact, the only way to play this piece properly, is to reach the depths of emotion Barber was experiencing himself. As artistically pretentious as it sounds, one must become the music to give it justice.

But that’s what good art does.

It makes you feel something. It brings you to a new level of awareness. It makes you get down and dig through emotions you normally hide.

Good art takes something out of the artist in order to give something to the receiver. In other words, it wakes you up and makes you alive.

It stays with you and leaves an imprint on your soul.

Consider this rendition of Roy Orbinson’s “Crying” as sung by Rebekah Del Rio. It was featured in Mulholland Drive and while that movie left you puzzled, frustrated and upset for having spent so much time with it, no one ever complains about the scene in which she sings this piece.

She took an already brilliant song and reached a new level of emotion with it.

While I am no composer and my aptitude for music is minimal (my family tried… oh did they ever try…), I have never stopped thinking about the nature of art.

Even as a magician, I was obsessed with trying to elevate the artform to something beyond mild amusement. I never reached it, but I appreciated those who tried.

Now, I have the blank page where I conduct my compositions. My orchestra is twenty six letters, each one attuning itself to my thoughts upon which they are cast.

Each piece must take something out of me. It must… or it falls flat. It’s discarded, or not written at all.

One day I might write my own Barber masterpiece, but the only thing I will be thinking is… what next?

The artist never stops.

The obsession never dies.

Always waiting for the big moments can leave you wondering why they don’t seem so big when you finally get there.

We’ve fallen victim to this trap:

The anticipation, the heightened expectation and the slight twinge of disappointment. Perhaps we were hyping it up too much in our minds, or perhaps there were a few missing elements, or something wasn’t quite right.

It’s really the mindset on the way there. We expect the big and forget about all the off moments, life’s little excerpts, on the way there. They go unnoticed, almost ignored.

It’s the casual conversation with someone, the random act of kindness, the unexpected insight for something else you’ve been wondering about—all written off in lieu of something bigger.

Yet, it’s these every day little sparks of life that build the profound and they do it so casually.

Their subtlety is what creates the momentum for us, only to realize the real profound moment isn’t something that’s going to happen, but a realization of everything that has happened.

The off moments are what to look out for and appreciate because they teach us everything.

They are the mirror to our true character.
And, at the same time, they are the training grounds for building our character.

They are the stories we remember.
They are the events we tell about.
They are the memories we keep.

So watch out for them and do your best to never brush them off.

In reading this post recently by Dean Wesley Smith, he articulates a sentiment that strikes a blow at the ego, which is a dare for us to be bad.

We can get so caught up in caring about how our work will be perceived, we stop ourselves from shipping it.
From showing it.
From sharing it with others.

Instead, we need to dare ourselves to just put it out there.

I love this because the mindset frees you.

Yeah, sure, it might be bad… and it might fail.

In fact, it might fail miserably.

And the more I think about my own failures, the more I realize I’ve been bad—a lot.

More times than I can remember, really.

Yet, here I am… still standing.
Still going.

Learning from all those experiences and daring to keep wading out into the deep to see if I can swim.

Really, the worst that can happen to you is—nothing. You are merely ignored in the midst of the endless stream of people also putting their work out there.

It doesn’t stand out, or mildly stands out and is forgotten quickly.

The only damage that ever occurs is to the ego, which is the force stopping a person from even trying. It’s our grandoise sense of self-importance in a cosmos that is 13.7 billion years old that protects us from even the mildest form of criticism.

I often tell people the worst thing that could happen to you is praise because it could lead to stagnation, at which point, when the praise stops… the bitterness sets in. Then you go from daring to be bad to actually being bad.

We can all dare to put ourselves out there as the worst thing that could happen is we learn something from it.

Seems like a great tradeoff to me.

It has to start somewhere.

The life cycle we all fall victim to that keeps playing back at us, making us feel worse off every time we loop it.

It’s the cycle of making commitments, failing those commitments and then making them again.

Loop on repeat.

For life.

Until finally (hopefully) we one day throw our arms in the air and say that enough is enough. Today is the day the cycle will break.

Going forward, there will be no looking back and no returning to the starting point. We enter into a completely new path that doesn’t turn us right back around again.

But it has to be us making the move.

Being forced into it, by whatever agent responsible for that push, still doesn’t break the cycle. We find ways to sneak back into the loop, hide our true intentions and return to where we started.

However…

If we do find ourselves back in the loop, we know what the start looks like. We know the obstacles ahead and we know where the path will end.

At that point, the smartest move to make is to avoid the obstacles by preparing for them.

Because at some point, if we want to move forward, the cycle has to break.

While every post on this site is about what I’ve been thinking, struggling with, working through or excited to share—this one is the rare transparent honesty.

This isn’t some kind of rant, but a true evaluation of where I’m at right now.

I underestimated the magnitude of the last few weeks. By a long shot.

But now, I’m really feeling it taking its toll.

Contrast to the fatigue I felt as a parent of an infant, where sleep is rare and patience is razor thin, this is something different.

I’ve used up all my creative capacity, all my energy and all my good intention to skyrocket the start of the year, finding a new rhythm to work within.

It’s been fruitful and I’ve been touched by the incredible positive feedback, but with the onslaught of new developments that are passed down every day, it just feels like another weight pressing down.

I know it’s getting bad because I’m not sleeping at night and I feel the irritability building inside. Even my most treasured creative outlet and mental reprieve, which is my writing, isn’t helping.

When I sit at the keyboard to let loose, I shut down. My creative energy has been spent.
My mental capacity is done.
My fatigue sets in.

Then I look at my household and realize how much it’s been neglected. I stress over not wanting my family to feel the exhaustion I’m experiencing, while at the same time, recognizing how reliant I am on them.

They continue to feed me and for that, there is no gratitude that can be measured in words.

But it further wears me down that I need to stay strong for them.

Understandably, this is just another season.

I will get through it like all others and there’s no reason to get bogged down by it. There is always a choice I have each day and the best one I can make is for joy.

I will never know the pain of what others go through. The real pain of a lifetime of suffering to which there is no reprieve. A pain to which there is nothing to be thankful for except for an end to it all.

And I will never know how a person, who has literally gone through hell, can still stand up straight with a smile on their face and walk as though the flames never touched them.

Bigger picture—there is some real suffering out there.

Me?

I’m just tired in every part of who I am… and it sucks.

There’s a noise that exists outside of your bubble. It’s a piercing noise that completely interrupts anything you are doing and all the good you are accomplishing.

It’s a discouraging noise and one that attempts to derail the path you’re on, or the walk you’re taking. It’s draining, exhausting and can easily wear you down.

The funny thing about this noise is it occurs after you’ve made some noise… did some good… established something solid. It only comes after your bubble of the universe has grown to be visible to others.

Sometimes, however, this noise finds you because it’s a giant megaphone that blankets a large area without regard for who hears it.

This noise sounds different every time you tune yourself to hear it:

It’s a suggestion that there’s a better way to be doing what you’re doing.

It’s a criticism that you aren’t good enough.

It’s a siren call to join the multitudes who spend their time complaining.

It’s a debate between others that you mentally involve yourself in, even knowing there will never be a clear settlement… no matter how benign the topic.

Through it all, there’s a few things you need to remember about the origin of this noise—people talk a lot and they complain a whole lot more.

Very few are willing to take action, ignore it and keep going.

If you’re onto something good, you’re loving what you’re doing and the people you’re serving are loving it too, then do yourself a favour and ignore everything else.

In the beginning was the story and the story was what connected us.

It’s the telling of a story from one person to the next that passes on all the knowledge, information and wisdom from one generation to another. We don’t relate to each other in facts, but in our own experience to the story being told.

When we can plug into the story being expressed, we share a responsibility with the storyteller to add our chapter to it. We recognize this story is what all of us can plug into…

and why it needs to be defended.

A story that binds people together also has the power to bind other people from speaking.

When we talk about dehumanizing another person, what we’re really talking about is taking away their narrative. We reduce them to nothing more than their physical makeup and disregard everything else.

That’s why early civilizations knew if you wanted to completely conquer another group, you burned their libraries.

Erased their stories.

Take them out of existence to never be remembered again.

However, sometimes the story goes wrong. It takes a twist we weren’t expecting… or wanting… and then we have to take it upon ourselves to change it. Reclaim it.

Other times, the story surprises us. It takes us down a path we would’ve never gone with on our own.

It teaches us.

It guides us.

It shows us what it means to be human.

We can feel so small compared to the grand scale of the universe, until we remember—we are not part of the universe, but the universe reflecting on itself, telling its own story.

Right now we are tense patients in the waiting room of disaster. As the world around us continues to show the chaos of what is to come, we wait for the ball to drop.

We ask ourselves questions:

Is this it for us?
Can we even prepare?
What next?

In fact, if I were to summarize this past year in two words, it would be just that: What next?

It’s almost like a running joke where people exaggerate the punchline, taking it to extremes that couldn’t possibly occur—just to alleviate their stress at what might be. However, it might be a good time to ask another question:

What can we do right now?

We are not in the waiting room of life, hopelessly distracting ourselves with out of date magazines until our name is called. We are living life.

Right now.

We can still find ways to be content, to help others and to act in a practical manner.

There are enough stresses being levied our way and dumped on our doorstep. We don’t need to add any more to it and it’s in our best interest to find the ones we can rightfully ignore or sweep away.

Humanity has endured all we’re facing and more.

Let’s get out of the waiting room and go on living any way we can.