I’m in the throws of writing my first book. The most challenging creative adventure I have ever set path. A meditational/instructional memoir of sorts - not another self help book. I’m hoping we are approaching the upper limit of “how-to’s” written by people who have pinpointed the exact steps you need to take to….lose weight, make massive amounts of money in the stock market, make massive amounts of money in crypto, create new habits, stop being a doormat, survive a divorce, or make artisan cheese. Correction: not written by, but most often written for people who hold all of life’s answers. Which I have to tell you, I did not know ghost writing was a thing until about ten years ago. Really? You didn’t write the book on how to do the thing you claim to know the most about? A book you expect millions to not only pay you for, but give you hours of their most precious asset to read. (Which millions don’t read, as only about 20 out of the 500,000 books written each year hit that mark.) Honestly, I didn’t know people hired other people to write for them; and worse yet, admitted it. When my first fitness coach casually mentioned to me he had a ghost writer for his blog, I felt like I had just been told the tooth fairy was actually my mother. All those years it was her, mystically leaving quarters under my pillow without lifting it? But then again, he was in the fitness industry, so it should be obvious why he didn’t write for himself. Ok, I admittedly am a literary snob - not sorry.
In my book, I am attempting to take readers on a journey through my life so you can learn to look at your own life for answers. I surely don’t have all the answers and wouldn’t be so arrogant as to give others advice. Instead, I tell my story with complete truth and transparency. We learn the most from hearing stories. Stories are powerful and they stick in our memories. I’ve always thought if we taught history to our young people in the form of stories rather than text book facts they would know all they should about the past. People can therefore read my story, and see for themselves what happens when you look honestly into your own life. That is where the answers are; inside you, not neatly laid out in ten steps. You can take the lessons I have learned, apply it in your life and use the rest as entertainment. Believe me when I say there is enough entertaining dirt in this book for even the most shallow haters to gossip about for years to come. Like a hater’s buffet if you will.
So I am currently on an archeological dig through my life. There is a lot of shit to sort through, that’s for sure. Visiting places like my kindergarten classroom, the playhouse where I reenacted countless episodes of Little House on the Prairie, remote patches of open field where I drank beer at kegs back in the day, cemeteries, my grandparent’s home and all the places I have lived. Bit by bit, I am sifting through the ruins that constitute my life. With mesh pan in hand, I throw memories in, give them a steady shake back and forth and see what treasures I find. (The scene I am describing here quite possibly resembles panning for gold more than an archeological dig but I hate science and you get the point.) My rainbow seat bike, Mrs. Johnson - my fourth grade teacher, neon tetras who jumped to their deaths from their tank onto the heat register on the floor below and the bones of Muffin - my sister’s androgynous cat. How did we know our cat was androgynous? His terrorist behavior led us to taking him to the vet to figure out why he was trying to kill us; that’s how.
In all of the sorting, I am noticing a trend. The most significant character defining moments in my life are surrounded by struggle. It is when I place the muckiest, muddiest of memories in my pan that I find pieces of gold. The sludge after the suicide of my dad, when washed away reveals the brightest piece of acknowledging mortality. The dusty, dank years of loneliness in my youth open up to the strength, leadership and tenacity I possess today. The foul stench of residual alcohol on my breath gives way to a joyful life of which I never imagined possible.
It is in the darkest, most painful times of our lives that the most important lessons are to be learned. There are pieces of invaluable gold and treasure amongst the wreckage. Yet, we are constantly trying to bury it. When we aren’t busy burying the filth, we are doing our best to avoid encountering any new struggle.
I was recently having a text exchange with a dear friend of mine who is going through a painful divorce. I check in with her from time to time just to let her know I am thinking of her. When I asked how she is doing, she gave an honest answer, “I’m managing. Life is hard. But, I’m making it happen.” I let her know I love her and while I have not personally experienced the pain of divorce, I have no doubt in the lessons that pain teaches us. I told her, “There is no learning in times of peace. As difficult as things are for you right now, the lessons life is teaching are making you somebody nothing else could make you. The person you are meant to be.”
What troubles me most in the world today is we are living under the fabrication that life is meant to be easy. While we are busy seeking the easy route, we are inevitably making everything harder on ourselves. Trying to ditch the hard work and inescapable suffering life entails will not end our suffering; it will multiply it. Suffering is unavoidable but we do not need to suffer unduly. Right now, we are on a path to undo suffering.
Collectively we are making life, an already difficult thing to manage, much more difficult. We choose to neglect our health, undoubtedly increasing our suffering. We marginalize ourselves into groups, leading to a lack of individuality and personal responsibility. We make every attempt to spare our children hurt by manufacturing their world. Instead of giving them the tools they need to navigate the harsh world they will face, we are attempting to reshape the world to accommodate them. An impossible feat. Ourselves buying into the produced, fake lives we see on social media and television. Looking at the lives of others as if they never suffer and then playing the victim because our lives are full of it.
I believe we have had it far too good for far too long. Things are collectively so good that we can’t seem to find any more treasures. We have been sifting through powder-soft silt and then complaining we can’t find any gold.
Remember the days following 9/11? The beautiful cohesion of a country divided from its origin. That level of unity was brought about by enormous collective suffering. I miss those times. I miss the days of seeing my fellow Americans as individuals, not as the gender, ethnic or economic group to which they belong. I fear that the only way back to uniting us as a nation is experiencing again a collective, massive suffering. I hope I am wrong.
Suffering is an inescapable truth of life through which we find our treasure. We have to accept this for ourselves and as a collective world. There is meaning to be found there and when we ignore it or avoid it, we miss finding our purpose. We each have a divinely inspired purpose to fulfill and it will involve pain. This pain can be used in one of two ways: to connect us to who we are or to make us bitter and angry. I think it is clear which one is the best choice. There aren’t any other choices. We don’t find out who we are until something challenges us to define ourselves. We need to suffer and the more we attempt to avoid it, the more undue suffering we cause.