I entered year 38 this past week. I love getting older because you get the best birthday gift each year from Father Time himself and that is the gift of perception.  You cannot buy perception in a store.  You can’t go to an Ivy League school and obtain an advanced degree in it. Perception must be earned.  Perception is only a result of time.  Perception is when you start to sort the pieces of the big complex puzzle of life together and determine how you fit into that puzzle.  I’ve said it before but being an adult is one giant dismantling of paradigms.   Paradigms are those beliefs you step out into the world with at age 18, holding on to all the well wishes type books and letters from high school commencement.  You are the Fool from the first card in the tarot deck.  You think you know but you have no idea what you’re stepping into.   This process of dismantling paradigms and creating perception is actually a miraculous process because one definition of a miracle is a shift in perception.  We humans are actual miracle machines in motion.

I’m entering year 38 in a time of chaos for the world.  In addition to the rapid changes in, oh everything, there’s the prevalence of social media apps and the internet in our pocket at all times.  What this means is you get a lot of static, a lot of noise, a lot of what I like to call ballyhoo.  What this means is you get a lot of hype, a lot of average things get elevated to a level far above the truth of what it really is.  There’s this GIANT social media jerk off, where people who are DOING THEIR JOBS get praised like they’re some superheroes in a comic book.  You get manipulations of things like tons of  followers on social media accounts who aren’t real, who give the appearance of “influence” (a word that makes me throw up in my mouth a little) when in reality a quick look at the actual engagement shows there’s a giant mismatch to what the appearance is, but nobody notices because they’re too busy following and feeding the hype machine.  Our need to stay in groups as biological survival from thousands of years ago has created in the 21st century a sick disease of misinformation and perpetual ego stroking, a beast that is never, ever satiated.  This has caused me to ask myself over and over again: “what matters what matters what matters???”.   What I seek is TRUTH, a refuge from this insanity and exaggeration.  

This isn’t just about separating fact from fiction, hype from reality or real journalism from fake news.  This is about going beyond the surface appearance of things, a useful skill set no matter which era of history you live in when dealing with the illusion of planet Earth but particularly now when everyone has a camera and recording device and is ready to perform.  Several hundred years ago Shakespeare said all people are performers and the world is their stage and he was RIGHT.  Remember he wrote this way back before electricity was harnessed in people’s homes, back when the world was much smaller population-wise and people were more focused on survival against basic things like not dying from a bacterial infection vs constantly being obsessed with itself by updating statuses on a daily basis.  This brings up my second point beyond seeking what’s real and that’s peace.

When it comes to peace I’m riding in the taxi of the Tao and Native American traditions.  This is the philosophy of letting things be, being like water, wu wei, and silent power.  Silent power is particularly compelling. If you’re amazing you don’t have to talk about it.  You don’t need the social media jerk off.  You just live in the energy of amazing and let the results speak for themselves.  Come what may!!! I’ve really really become this way in general but with men in particular because I’m single and men in America are very spoiled and entitled.  They expect women to dance around them, do their bidding, they treat women like options.  This produces a lot of BS and games, which only adds to the static and noise of the world and pushes everything away from the truth.  

This is why my latest navigation tactic as a human is to pull back and observe.  I don’t play games, I’m real, I don’t participate in games when people try and pull me into their chaos.  I mind the gap.  I make effort to cultivate relationships with people who have respect, who are interesting and thoughtful and who aren’t addicted to drama and chaos or ego stroking.  I try and devote my off time to writings and films and shows that are compelling and that I find interesting.  Each person doing their part in respect and with consciousness for the energy they are creating is useful for everyone involved, especially since social media has made the world smaller.  Not only does this awareness allow you to separate the wheat from the chaff but this also allows you to gain the golden nuggets of truth and oh yes, perception.