Our Air

 I'm 45 years old and lived the majority of my years being afraid to socially make mistakes, so I didn't necessarily learn as much as I was programmed to say and do the right things. But to do things not because they are programmed responses, but because they are gestures from the heart was always missing, and while I was cool with everyone, I seldom built relationships. 

The secret to connectivity for me is just like the secret to air. You can't see it and you can't visually tell it's density, or if there's any air in the room at all...but you'll damn sho feel it! I think it's the same with energy or what that thing is that connects us with one another. You can tell when someone is saying and doing all the right things, but it just feels hollow, rehearsed, programmed. And there's nothing wrong with that, by the way. When we're out in the world, dealing with people we don't know or have no personal connections with, the dry-aired, programmed responses of politeness and generic respect get us through our daily duties and interactions with people we don't really give a shit about. But when we wanna build connections and be in relationship with one another, I think bringing the guards down just a little and letting a little life out of the moving corpse is my next challenge. It's not something seen, it's something felt. 

But its risky, no? Moving with feeling? There's no road map, no street by street instructions. You gotta know what you're trying to go. And you might make a wrong turn and slightly trespass someone's boundaries. But we pull back, say "my bad", and learn. 

Wise man once told me (Me, while talking to myself): "Forget about what it looks like. Forget about what it sounds like. What does it feel like?  Learning is a process, sometimes difficult. It involves a lot of wrong answers and mistakes, but from out of it, we know. I think its important for those that seek to not become a series of programmed responses. It's just like testing in school: It's better to know the answers than it is to have memorized them.