Want Bliss? Don't Be a Jerk.

OK, this one is personal. I am writing this with scraped hands, a leg propped up, and an ice pack on my knee. No, no one pushed me over. That's not exactly where the jerk part comes in.

Actually, what happened may have been even worse. I'll let you decide that. But as I was walking to my parking garage after work, I slipped on an acorn (those damn things are everywhere now) and took a pretty bad tumble. I banged up my knee nice and good, and my hands began bleeding almost instantly. The contents of my purse, according to Murphy's law, emptied themselves in their entirety onto the pavement. (And why is it that the tampons always end up the furthest away?)

Here's the jerk part. Four people were nearby, the furthest at no more than 50 feet, the closest about 20 feet behind me. And guess what? They all looked at me, but no one said a good goddamn thing. Not even a tentative I-don't-really-know-how-I-can-help-but-I'll-ask-anyway "Are you okay?"

Not even from the father LEADING HIS SON IN HIS BOY SCOUT UNIFORM. People talk about setting an example, but I don't think that's generally what they mean.

Do I sound a little angry? Maybe even a little overly angry? Maybe. But here's why this bothers me. I'll be fine, yes, but that's not the point. The point is that we must never become so self-involved that we fail to help someone when we can. That is when we fail to be human. Once or twice won't turn you into the grinch, but a lifetime of looking the other way will, and then, I'm sorry to report, you won't ever find your bliss, because you will no longer have the soul that is required to find bliss. That's why getting pushed is actually less terrible: at least someone pushing you is doing so out of motivation, anger, some reason. Someone ignoring what they plainly see is someone too small and mean to care. I submit to you that that is worse.

If you want to live a good life, the one that you are meant for, you must never forget how to be generous. How to serve. How to inconvenience yourself occasionally for others because it is the right thing to do. How to care for someone less fortunate. How to feel empathy. In other words, I am saying that yes, on the path to bliss, it is important to be a good person.

One day after class at the University of Arizona, I was on my bike, getting ready to leave for home, when I saw a suspicious guy hanging around the bike racks. Now, the UofA is a notorious bike thief's paradise, so I kinda figured I'd watch him. And sure enough, he kept going back and forth between crouching near a bike and then standing around like everything was completely normal. A few people passed me, and I said, "I think that guy is trying to steal a bike," and they all looked me like, "Oh. Fascinating," and moved along. I realized no one was going to call campus police, so I started circling him on my bike, staring him down.

It was really a battle of wills--who was going to get scared and give up first--one that I won, though after about 5 minutes. As soon as he left, I rode to the nearest campus police phone box, and called them in.

As I waited for the cops, I felt really good about looking out for someone, hoping that someone else might do the same for me. The cops showed up, and I started to give them my report when the bike's owner showed up. She lifted the bike's cable lock, and sure enough, it had been nearly clipped through. She came up to me, thanked me for protecting her bike, and then she said this: "Yeah, this is really great, because right now my bike is the only transportation I've got. My car was stolen last week."

And in that moment, I felt a surge of happiness. My small sacrifice of time and energy had really made a difference in this girl's life. It's the kind of thing I try to do as often as I can, and I know it has the effect of preparing your soul, your heart, your life for more happiness and bigger responsibility. Because if you think living your bliss doesn't come with responsibility, then you're not conceiving of your bliss properly. For, if nothing else, your bliss requires that you do the best you can, all while remaining a good, generous and honest person.

So the next time you see someone down, it's not enough just to not kick them. You must also not ignore them (though you can pretend not to see the scattered tampons). Just do what's right. Because jerks don't get to experience bliss.

What's Experience Good For, Anyway?

So my mom, sage that she is, always has this handy little saying she trots out when one of her dear children calls her with disappointment, or heartache or a strong desire to win the lottery so she (or he! it could be my brother we're talking about here) can call up the boss and say, Shove it!

What she says is this: Everything happens for a reason.

Her father taught her something similar. He told her this: No hay mal que por bien no venga. Which, loosely translated, means: There is no misfortune that does not also bring some good.

These admittedly fatalistic nuggets are not always the easiest thing to hear. After all, when you want something, you want it! But of course, it's never that simple. I've been writing about Randy Pausch's "Lecture of a Lifetime" the past couple days, and there's something he quoted that also seems to go along with this theme. These were the words he shared: "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."

OK, so there must be something to all of this. What is it, then? What does all this so-called "experience" get us, anyway?

Here are some thoughts:

1. We learn about the brick wall. If we didn't have obstacles, we might not discover what we really, truly want, or even why we want that thing.
   
2. We learn that our lives are not completely under our control. This is an important lesson. I believe this is one path toward a greater humility and reflectiveness--if we can't control everything in our lives, we discover the limits of our powers, which also teaches us a great deal about compassion and patience.
3. We learn how to get creative. If everything happened as planned, we wouldn't be forced to test the limits of our powers, by trying new ideas, new methods, by digging into new resources. Necessity truly is invention's mama.
4. We learn where happiness comes from. So you want the high-powered job? Think your life won't be complete without the Prada handbag? If only you had one more bathroom in your house, then things would be set? The problem with getting exactly what you want, easily, is that you never learn what it is you really want, and what is truly important. You just keep feeding the consumer, because it makes you feel better for a brief while. Paris Hilton has a lot of material crap, but does she have a rich inner life? My guess is no.
   
5. We learn to construct a narrative of our lives. When we go through the gamut of feelings--from elation to disappointment to love to grief--our lives take on the meaning and richness of story. Why do we like stories? Because they get us in touch with something larger than the self. No story is any good without conflict, so why should yours be any different. Experience gives you a story to tell.

Look at Randy Pausch's story. He's basically selected the highs and lows of his life to tell us what his life has meant. Judging from the public's reaction, his life's story means a great deal to all of us. Obviously he would have worth as a human being even if he had had everything handed to him, but we wouldn't be captivated by it: waiting to find out how his work with the Imagineers worked out, on edge to see if he would achieve his goal of being in zero gravity.

Experience, in short, is another word for adventure. While it might seem nice to do without the disappointment, the pain, the struggle--a life lived without adventure doesn't seem like much of a life at all. In fact, though Randy Pausch is young at 46, and only has a few months to live, his life is, without a doubt, one to be envied.

He has lived the adventure of his dreams. I wish you all--and myself--to have the courage to live what Joseph Campbell called the "soul's high adventure."

Your Critic, Your Best Friend

Today's post will actually continue to explore Randy Pausch's lecture, which I wrote about yesterday. He is the professor dying of pancreatic cancer who gave an inspiring final lecture about achieving your childhood dreams.

I am exploring his statements, mining them for the riches they contain. Today I'd like to discuss the relation of the critic and of criticism to your path toward bliss.

This is obviously where a lot of folks get very uncomfortable. You announce to your spouse you'd like to open a yoga studio. He says, in a calm voice: "Honey, you've never taught a yoga class." Your heart may think, An immaterial detail! But your brain hears his words as criticism saying, You will certainly fail!

Our relationship to criticism is a complex one, and is dependent as much on timing as on anything else. Reveal your dreams of opening a yoga studio too soon, and the gossamer fabric of the dream is too flimsy to stand up to the real world of struggle and heartbreak. But keep your dream secret for too long, and you miss out on the encouragement, advice and community of people who believe you are capable of succeeding.

Now, back to Randy Pausch's thoughts on criticism. One of his childhood dreams was to play NFL football. He described himself as kind of a small, scrawny kid--not your typical thick-necked football player. Nevertheless, as a nine year old, he started playing football in a league under a Coach Jim Graham. Here's what he has to say about that experience:

There was one practice where he was riding me hard. All practice was, you're doing it all wrong, you owe me laps, you're doing pushups after practice. After it was all over, an assistant coach came up to me and said, "Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn't he?" I said, yeah, he did. And then he said, "That's a good thing. When you're screwing up and no one's telling you anymore, that means they gave up." That's a lesson that stuck with me my whole life. When you see yourself screwing up and no one's bothering to say anything, that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones telling you they love you and still care.

No one likes to be criticized. It hurts, mainly because you suspect it might be true. Or, even if you know it's not true, it forces you to summon belief in yourself, which is sometimes so hard and scary to do it's easier to believe that the critic is right and you're doomed to fail.

No matter whether the criticism is constructive or destructive, I say that any reaction is better than indifference and dismissal. Any reaction means there is a real response, that you're on to something. And most of the time, when criticism comes from your loved ones, they really just want to help you. It's well-intentioned, and might bear listening to. Maybe in the yoga studio example above, the husband isn't saying: 'You'll fail,' but rather, 'I love you, I don't want to see you hurt, and I think you need to develop your plans a little more.'

So the next time someone gives you hell, don't look at it as an excuse to give up. Decide to listen to constructive criticism, assess it for validity, and then trust yourself to do with it what you need to. Decide to be grateful for the criticism, grateful that someone cares enough to expend their limited energy to help you reach the potential they see in you.

Now, isn't that a better way of looking at it? So the next time someone gives you a kick in the ass, turn to them, smile, and say, "Thanks, I needed that."

How Badly Do You Want Your Bliss?

As I was sorting through the e-mails that stacked up while I was away on vacation, one stood out: a link to a final lecture from Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, who is dying of pancreatic cancer.

I first read the story on the ABC site, but then clicked to watch the lecture, titled "How to Live Your Childhood Dreams." I actually haven't finished it--there are four parts, and I've only finished part one, but already I know that this man's wisdom--and humor, because he's very funny--speaks exactly to what I'm trying to do here on Gimme Bliss.

I'd like to break out pieces of his lecture and expand on them, because each sentence of this lecture is richer than the last. I suppose this comes from the intimacy he now has with his own mortality, which most of us really can't or don't want to face most of the time. Did you ever see that great HBO series Six Feet Under? Someone asks undertaker Nate Fisher why we die. His answer: "Because death gives life meaning."

So back to Randy Pausch's lecture. In the first part, he mentions several times the idea of the "brick wall." As in, he wanted to be a Disney Imagineer, but after earning his Ph.D. and sending off an application, they sent him, to paraphrase, the most nicely worded go-to-hell letter ever.

What he said next was very wise. I'm paraphrasing, but he said:

Brick walls are not there to keep you out, but to remind you how badly you want something. Brick walls aren't there to keep you out, they're there to keep all those other people out.

The audience laughed, because he obviously did not once consider himself one of those other people.

I absolutely love this. If everything were easy, what would be the value of achieving your dreams? What would separate the most devoted, most persistent from the merely lucky, or the just plain lazy? Just as your birthdays are there to remind you of time passing, brick walls show up when you most need to reevaluate your commitments and reenergize your focus.

After all, if you don't really want to become a musician, or brew your craft beer or write that book, that's a place where it's okay for you to give up. That's where the universe is asking you if you're really sure about all this. And maybe you're not. I know some people decide that the sacrifices and the work aren't going to be justified by attaining that goal. Maybe it's where you find something else you were supposed to be doing, but weren't aware of it.

But, if you're certain that you're on the right path, that this goal of yours is in line with your gift, with what you have to offer the world, and if it's something that you can't do without--then this is the point where the universe separates the merely talented from the truly passionate.

In other words, this is where you discover that that brick wall doesn't apply to you. That wall is for other people. Sure you may not walk right through it as though it were a mere illusion, but as you press up against it, searching its surface for a hold, you will get close enough to see what others can't: the irregularities in the surface, the places your fingers and toes will fit, that it's not as high as it seemed when you first saw it.

And then you will climb over the wall, and end up on the other side. But before you do, you will stand for a moment on top of the wall, looking out over the view, at what you've achieved, and you will look back and you will look forward, and you will be so very thankful that the wall was there to climb.

Gone Sailing...

Okay, not really. I don't know how to (literally) sail, but a vacation--the reason the blog will be quiet for a few days--is definitely a voyage of adventure, surprise, and always at least a little risk.

The house above is in the place I'm headed--Salem, MA. The house above also happens to have been owned by one of my childhood heroes--Nathaniel Bowditch. (There he is, bottom left, in the top hat!) He was the subject of Jean Lee Latham's book Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, which was one of those childhood books that had a profound effect on my young mind.

Here's how the Wikipedia entry summarizes the plot of the novel:

The novel introduces readers to young Nat Bowditch, a boy who loves school, and especially mathematics. He dreams of someday attending Boston's Harvard University, but is forced by economic circumstances to quit school and begin working. Eventually, he ends up as an indentured servant to a ship's chandler. Still determined to continue his education, he begins to study (and master) advanced mathematics in the evenings after work.

When his indenture is complete, he gets the chance to go to sea. There, he discovers that many of the navigational sources used at the time contain extensive and dangerous errors. He is prompted to compile a new book of navigational information. This book, The American Practical Navigator, is still in use today. Under several captains, Nat learns how things work at sea. He invents new ways of calculating latitude and longitude, increasing the accuracy of calculations used to find ships' locations. Eventually Nat becomes a captain himself.. At the book's end, Nat receives an honorary degree from the school he always wanted to attend, Harvard.

His story was such an inspiration to me as a young girl--the amazing way he triumphed over the odds, the challenges he faced, the talent he had that he refused to give up on--he was certainly a hero.

Joseph Campbell talks a lot about the hero's journey, viewing it as mythic instruction for how we should strive to live our own lives.

I read a post today at the Shane & Peter, Inc. blog about getting a mentor, and I think it's priceless advice that I will definitely heed. But I think it's so important to have heroes, too, be they living or dead. Sometimes I actually prefer the dead ones, just because they have stood the test of time and have gained a lustre that shines as a beacon for us when times seem dark. They reach out across the ages and give encouragement through the legend and example of their own lives. That their stories resonate even today is immensely heartening, because they too were human. It's like that line in the latest Harry Potter film:

Every great wizard in history started out as nothing more than what we are now. If they could do it, why not us? Well… why not us?

Indeed. Why not me? Why not you? Carry on, dear reader. Become the hero you loved as a child.

Language Day: Find the Meaning of Life in a Novel

I read this truly excellent essay today in the Boston Globe, and it has me all atwitter with thoughts. It's somewhat lengthy, and I'll pull out my favorite paragraphs here, but if you have time, by all means read it. (And feel free to get a discussion going in the comments!)

Essentially, it talks about the failure of universities to provide a true humanistic education to the students passing through its gates, and what that means for society's spiritual (but not necessarily religious) investigations. The article acknowledges that those studying the sciences fare better, though I believe that anyone in any discipline could benefit from humanities courses taught well. The difficulty, the writer posits, is that when the humanities left a secular but still spiritual pursuit of the questions Why are we here? and What is the meaning of life? to pursue narrow, specialized research fields, they lost their power, prestige and the interest of their students.

What I'm interested in is the obviously deep curiosity people have for the big questions, and how they go about trying to find their way toward insight, even without guidance or organization. After all, this curiosity is what led me to stumble upon Joseph Campbell, and then embrace him as a teacher. As Kronman, the writer of this essay, says:

Most importantly, perhaps, the great upsurge of religious fundamentalism outside our colleges and universities is a sign of the growing appetite for spiritual direction. These movements can be a source of danger and division, and intellectuals may mock and despise them, but teachers also ought to see in them the energy that will drive the restoration of the question of life's meaning - and, with that, of the humanities themselves - to a central place in our colleges and universities. The fundamentalists have the wrong answers, but they've got the right questions. We need to learn to ask them again in school.

So maybe we got screwed in college. So maybe we should have been studying Plato, but we were (somehow, in my case) studying Madonna. What do we do now?

For me, I couldn't agree more with Kronman--the answer isn't in the unique inflection of a religious tradition, but in the larger, more universal explorations of human mythos, consciousness, philosophy. So, we go and we find like-minded people, and we teach ourselves. I know that this is suited for avid readers--and while I am one, I recognize not everyone is--but again, starting out with Joseph Campbell's accessible The Power of Myth book or DVD could be the beginning of a direction.

Then, as we progress, we can follow Kronman's suggestion, which begins by discussing the similarities of programs devoted to these larger questions. He writes: (emphasis mine)

These programs differ in many ways, and inevitably reflect the culture of their schools; some are mandatory and others, like Yale's Directed Studies, are elective. But despite their differences, all rest on a set of common assumptions, which together define a shared conception of humane education.

The first is that there is more than one good answer to the question of what living is for. A second is that the number of such answers is limited, making it possible to study them in an organized way. A third is that the answers are irreconcilably different, necessitating a choice among them. A fourth is that the best way to explore these answers is to study the great works of philosophy, literature, and art in which they are presented with lasting beauty and strength. And a fifth is that their study should introduce students to the great conversation in which these works are engaged - Augustine warily admiring Plato, Hobbes reworking Aristotle, Paine condemning Burke, Eliot recalling Dante, recalling Virgil, recalling Homer - and help students find their own authentic voice as participants in the conversation.

That notion above--"that the best way to explore these answers is to study the great works of philosophy, literature, and art in which they are presented with lasting beauty and strength"--obviously speaks to me as a writer of fiction. But I see it as an exhortation to those of you who may not always see the potential art has to be more than be an elegant and decadent luxury.

This is pretty heady stuff, but here's my main message on this Language Day: Read fiction. Study a painting. Read philosophy. Watch a really great film. Get to know Art. Get right up next to these big, huge, ginormous ideas--yes, it may make you uncomfortable, yes, it might be difficult at first. But if you're serious about finding your bliss, you first have to find out what your life means to you, what you have to contribute, what the purpose of your life is.

To me, there's no better, more fun way to do that than to cozy up to some art.

Free Your Breath to Unclutter Your Mind

Recently I wrote a post about 87 year old yoga master Tao Porchon-Lynch. In the interview part of the article, she said something that has stayed with me, and that I am finding to be exceptionally helpful in clearing my mind and relaxing my body when I begin to feel overwhelmed.

The interviewer says: You seem so peaceful and serene. Is it the yoga? To which she replies: (emphasis mine)

I do believe that you can if you work with the breath, you can relax and feel that power within you. I work with my breath. People have problems when they keep their noisy thoughts in their throats. When you learn to breathe properly, you can get rid of those noisy thoughts and relax. If I can bring people into a quiet place and get rid of their noisy thoughts, you'd be surprised how they calm down.

The first time I read this, I did find it strange that she made reference to noisy thoughts being in the throat. I had always thought that a racing mind originated in the head, in the space behind the eyes. I didn't think much of it until the next time I felt myself under stress, and I recognized that my throat was tight and constricted, and breath was barely squeaking through that airway.

That's when Porchon-Lynch's words came back to me, and I tried opening my throat to breath. Like rinsing a clogged screen with water, I felt my head clear. Focus and clarity returned to my mind, and I felt better physically. I didn't feel as sick to my stomach, as confused by the shrapnel of thoughts bombarding my brain in damaging and broken shards.

While I now know that Porchon-Lynch is right in the quote above, I'm still not quite sure why. My theory is that our thoughts are usually formulated into words, which our minds/bodies recognize as potential speech. Maybe our throats get full of potential words, and we experience the sensation of tightness and constriction as a kind of blockage of all the potential things we could say aloud. I don't really know.

What I do know is that this seemingly small statement is having a profound effect on the way I maintain calm and focus. And it's such a small thing. Which got me to thinking about the tiny, cumulative things you can do to get somewhere big.

If you're like me, sometimes the prospect of making big changes seems burdensome and sometimes downright impossible. I don't like people who advise you to change your life in one day. That's why I like this one: open your throat to breath. I like it because I know I can do it!

I also like that it's tied to a fundamental physical process. I don't like advice that tells you you need to buy something in order to change. I guess sometimes you might, but this one is free, and more importantly, it seems logical to me that if you can get your breath in order, you might have a better foundation for more ambitious tasks.

Since you can't live without breathing, what if each breath were more free, more cleansing, more calming? What if you could train yourself to breathe calmly and use your breath to bring calm when you weren't feeling it? This is ancient wisdom, I know, but sometimes it feels like such a revelation in our world--so much of this kind of wisdom has been lost to us or outside our culture.

You breathe thousands of breaths every day--doesn't it follow that making a small change in this foundational behavior could have a profound effect when practiced over and over again each day? I certainly think it can, and like I said, I'm already more aware when 'noisy thoughts' threaten to hinder my progress, and am more able to fend them off, too.

So hey, free that breath already! This one I know you can do!

Possibly related posts:
Gimme Bliss: Birthday Edition
Look Up.
What is Beyond Your Perception, but Exists Nonetheless?
Find Your Self. Then Trust It.

What Can You Add Through Subtraction?

Sometimes, when we think about making change, we think about doing more, making lists, adding things, habits, routines.

And while that can be useful--I know that writing down my appointments and tasks on my Google Calendar is a new habit I'm really benefiting from--I'm here to ask: What changes can you make through subtraction?

What can you cut out of your life that is not truly essential? Let's move from the conceptual to the practical, shall we?

The Forest:

• Negative energy. Everyone has someone they know who is truly a vampire of the soul. They are negative more than they are positive, they enjoy incessant whining, and they want to make you as miserable as they are. Begin to move away from people who are like this, eventually removing this kind of influence from your life. And, if for some reason you cannot get away from the person, try to create a mental force field--tune them out, chant a silent mantra, think happy thoughts--that repels their negativity.
  
• Hunger. I'm not really talking about a craving for pizza here, though perhaps if that craving comes through boredom or loneliness, maybe it applies, too. But what I'm really referencing is that insatiable, roving hunger for things and feelings that you get through external means. A little retail therapy now and again won't kill you, but if you're constantly shopping online or dulling your senses with too much TV or using a friend as an emotional crutch, you need to take a look at what it is you're really after and cut the craving.
• Distractions. This kind of goes along with procrastination, since they're related. But quit using distraction as a method to forget what it is you really want or what you really hate--turn off the TV, jump off the Internet (but wait till you're done reading this), stop reading People magazine, and confront your life as it is. Reading about Lindsay Lohan's terrible life doesn't make yours any better.
• Excuses. Seriously, drop excuses from your speech and thinking. Some people have it easier, yes, but there are plenty of examples of people who have done amazing things through sheer force of will, faith, spirit and inner resources. So you're not rich, or good looking or maybe even able bodied. That's OK. Find what you have to offer, and make full use of what potential you do have. Every single person is capable of something extraordinary, even if it's something only you and a few people notice. Make a difference in your sphere of influence, whatever it is. If you want something badly enough and it is something you are capable of, you can do it.

Okay, so the preceding were the big picture items of subtraction. Anything falling under those categories are eligible for the big red pen. So, on a smaller scale, what else can you cut out of your life that will make things clearer for you on the path to your bliss?

The Trees:

• Garage sale. Other blogs have more to say on this subject, but suffice it to say, get rid of as much stuff as you can that you aren't using or you don't need. The more you can do this, the more time and space you will have for the things you do want and do want to spend time on. How can you create your animated film if you're surrounded by books you don't read, CDs you never listen to, or your closet is full of clothes you never wear?
• Unsubscribe from credit card offers and catalogs. Reduce the mail coming into your house and spend less time sorting through it.
• Internet and e-mail. I'm not advocating cutting this out entirely, but limit it to specified times, and don't cheat!
  
• Put TV and movies on your terms. My husband and I don't have a Tivo, but what we do instead of being enslaved to the TV is to rent the series and movies we want to watch on Netflix, and watch them when we want to. Yes, that means not being able to participate in water cooler conversation with your co-workers, but you probably don't like most of them anyway, so it's a good excuse to walk away. Two time-savers in one!
  
• Refuse to talk to people who aren't worth your time. This goes back to the negative energy issue. Save your precious social time for people you really like, and who are really your friends. If you say yes to invitations you don't want, or talk to people who sap your energy, you aren't being nice. You're being dishonest, insincere and helping no one. Not everyone you meet will be worth it--so long as you are polite when you decline, it doesn't make you mean, it makes you a self-respecting human.

This is just to get you started. Each person will have different things to subtract. But make a list of all the things--behaviors, things, habits--that you could live a better life without, and resolve to start cutting.

What I realize is that most of these suggestions deal with saving time. That's probably because the most common excuse uttered for not achieving what you want is this gem: "I'd like to do X, but I just don't have time."

All I'm asking is this: Is that really true? Or do you have the time, but it's currently filled with things that just need to go?

This one is hard for all of us, but I'm giving it my best effort, and I wish you luck. Feel free to share your ideas for "subtraction" in the comments.

Music is Bliss

I didn't post last night because I was out at a Spoon show until verrrry late. Needless to say, it freakin' rocked.

What I love about music, and especially live music, is the way you lose yourself in the sound, the performance, the atmosphere. This is an experience of bliss, no doubt about it.

What I love about Spoon, specifically, is the craft of the songs, and especially of the lyrics. They go beyond the rational and dip into the subconscious, symbolic, the mythic. They don't always make "sense," but they are by no means nonsense. Like the very best poetry, they are authentic and true.

I don't know if you have music in your life like this, but I know that listening to a band like Spoon or Modest Mouse or Elvis Costello helps me to bypass my mundane, conscious brain, and bring me into heightened awareness. Usually after listening, I want to create art. Literally, this music is my muse.

I truly believe there is no other art form that so directly hooks into the energetic, creative center of a person as music, so if you're looking to find help toward your bliss, make sure you have a musical companion or three to turn to.

Find Your Place of Transformation

This photo was taken in Saguaro National Park West, just outside of Tucson, Arizona.

One of the reasons I decided to go to graduate school there was because I had never lived in the desert, and I thought, "I want to know what that's like."

In some ways, inside the city, it's much like any other place: strip malls, movie theaters, even neighbors who stubbornly refused to acknowledge their local environment and so had heavily irrigated, golf-course style lawns.

Though you had hints of the desert in town, it was only when you left the developed areas and went into protected, real desert that you understood how fundamentally harsh and unwelcoming the desert is to humans. (Though of course the Pima Indians and other tribes developed the knowledge to live there--I'm just saying you need that kind of culturally transmitted, specialized knowledge to survive.)

Never had my skin been so dry, never had I had nosebleeds. Never did I have to squint my eyes shut when the dust storms would blow through and I'd be caught outside. Never did I encounter so many poisonous, prickly and otherwise unfriendly life forms.

And yet the desert is unspeakably breathtaking and awe-inspiring and, maybe most importantly, thriving. This is no dead place. The forms of life I saw may have reminded me of aliens, but there was life everywhere. Any niche that could be filled, was. Any evolutionary trick that could be tried, had been.

The perseverance of life. Its unwillingness to give up, its ability to change as needed to survive and then proliferate. This is one of the lessons the desert has to teach.

One day, very early on in the program, I was feeling lonely, frustrated, confused, uncertain that moving to Tucson to do this graduate program had been the right decision. I wandered into a store selling Southwestern furniture and crafts, looking for a gift. I was alone in the store, and somehow, the friendly owner and I struck up a conversation. I suddenly began pouring out my fears and concerns--practically telling this guy my life story. It just came rolling out of me, and I was lucky he was so willing to listen. When I finally stopped, he paused, and looked at me.

"You know why you're here, don't you?" he asked.
I had no idea. I shook my head.
"You've come here for transformation. Everyone who comes to Tucson comes for transformation."

And while I didn't know it at the time, he was right. Being in the stripped down harshness of a climate that felt like a constant assault began to effect a change in me, as did my studies. But as I found myself staring up at majestic, towering saguaros, and listening to the scour of wind against canyon walls, I couldn't help but be changed. Evolution and adaptation was all around me.

I'm not saying you have to move to the desert or the tundra to find your place of transformation. Tucson was it for me. But think about where--geographically, occupationally, personally--you will find the challenges that will force you to grow stronger, to thrive in any conditions.

Go there, and prepare for transformation.