Daylight moves slowly
Gently across the park’s grass
Dew disappearing
Geek who loves computers
My relentless mind
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p style=”font-family:"”>In perpetual motion
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p style=”font-family:"”>Sleeping’s a challenge
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p style=”font-family:"”>Awake against my will
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p style=”font-family:"”>Dreaming of dreaming
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p style=”font-family:"”>Longing for slumber
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p style=”font-family:"”>The machinery of my mind
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p style=”font-family:"”>Psychological cogs churn and spin
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p style=”font-family:"”>Whirring hum of my soul
It sums up a key idea I’ve been meditating on lately: that we get to define our lives. We get to choose what “success” means to us. We don’t need to be stuck in the destructive loops of our culture’s history. We can find a new way forward. That’s a key beauty of life today.
When I consider Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain’s suicides, I think that there’s something inherently wrong with our culture’s definitions about success. We need to work to define “success” so that we’re feeling fulfilled as we progress. I can’t imagine anything more miserable to achieve everything we’d dreamt of, and feeling empty and miserable.
My phone buzzes
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p style=”font-family:"”>A beautiful woman
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p style=”font-family:"”>Who I remember
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p style=”font-family:"”>In diapers
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p style=”font-family:"”>I feel joy
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p style=”font-family:"”>At the blessing
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p style=”font-family:"”>Of my simple
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p style=”font-family:"”>Witness
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p style=”font-family:"”>

His death striking me
Suicide’s painful cruelty
What ate his heart so?
I learned a lot from him
Though we weren’t friends, nor had met
But that’s not the point
His show connected with me
I felt a kinship via his journeys
And deeper knowledge
His travels: unique
He went off the beaten path
A road less taken
His show; self-aware
Acknowledging some deceits
Never caught a fish
No angel was he
A comfort with his darkness
Yet not quite enough
Bourdain won Emmys
And also a Peabody
Awards can’t save us
“Everything” he had
All the pieces he held up
Yet he felt despair
His pain surfacing
After great wealth and great fame
Worse than in failure
So many faiths
Preach there’s more to our lives
Than wealth or our fame
There’s an emptiness
In this life we envision
We must be wary
Exploring passion
Seeking to understand me
And what feeds my soul
One of my mentors challenged me: does my current work fill me with joy, is it what I imagine doing for years to come. I’ve never asked that of myself before. I’ve drifted from job to job. I’ve never had direction or mission in this part of my life.
I will fix that. It is time.
Writing is that joy giving thing. Now what? I’m unsure.
It’s exhilarating and terrifying.

As the rain had passed
This flower’s glory shines forth
And then the light shifts
Short form poetry
I seek out life’s core essence
Light through a prism
Sometimes this dreaming
Simply points us the right way
And the rain blessed