How to live a good life, make friends, have fun, and leave a pretty corpse.
There is a Daniel Romano song with a line that goes:
“But you’d never know by sound of my voice
You couldn’t tell by the clothes that I wear
But if you look close at me
You’ll see there are lines in my face that don’t come from smiling.”
A few summers ago, I went to see John Prine at Red Rocks in Colorado. At one point, during a slower song, I was shuffling off down the row to grab a beer. Towards the end of the row, I was startled to see a serene man sitting in a glow. The guy was maybe forty or seventy, it was impossible to tell. He was tan and thin with a nearly-bald head and white mustache. As I walked by, he hit me with a warm, peaceful smile.
I was taken aback. I immediately knew the sort of life this many lived just be looking at his face. He was kind, generous, and compassionate. He always helped beyond duty and never sweated the small stuff. I realized I was looking at a future version of myself, or at least the man I wanted to become.
The story of our lives in written across our faces. Every good deed or ill-thought leaves some small signature on our physical body. If you live long enough, it becomes impossible to hide your true essence. Good or bad, all rise to the surface. Next time you are at the grocery store — without being a creep — really look at the faces you rarely see. Dark shadows, deep creases, tight muscles, smile lines, bright eyes; here we are! Your face is your story. Besides dying young, the best way to leave a pretty corpse is by living a good life.
Three Key Principles for a good life:
1) Wholeness
It starts with curiosity, sometimes a question. I stumbled into my own curiosity after a typical day of high school. Lying in bed, all the usual shit was steamrolling through my brain like endless Youtube ads for everything in life that made me anxious. Homework. Awkward social interactions. Samantha smiling at me in history class and quickly turning away. Insecurities. Crappy school lunch. Being overweight. Offhand comments from my parents and teachers about focusing and trying harder.
In the whirlpool of my head, a thought slowly started to bubble towards the surface, smoothing out all other thoughts as it passed.
“This is their first time being alive.”
It was like a key clicking inside a locked deadbolt. Nobody knows what they’re doing. We’ve all been plucked out of infinity and thrust into the human experience. Everyone is just making it up as they go.
I was free.
I bobbed in that lightness for as long as I could hold it before it changed. But that was enough, I was changed too. Not long after this mini-enlightenment, a friend introduced me to Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. I read the short book in a day, breaking only to pee and eat. The book echoed everything I was thinking. Everyone is just trying to figure it out. Everyone walks their own path. Even if the way is proven, there is no guarantee that it will work again for someone else.
Rainer Maria Rilke has a poem that begins:
“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world…”
The first circle is the smallest but also the hardest to master. Once your personal circle is complete, then you are fit to start radiating out “across the world.”
The first step in having a lasting, positive impact on the world is to create the ultimate, fully realized self. Be complete on your own. Your independence is the foundation upon which you will construct the world around you. Seek out the cracks within yourself, exposing all points of weakness and vulnerability. Like the Japanese art of kintsugi, you will fill your cracks with brilliant gold, turning your weaknesses in strengths. If you learn to accept what makes you vulnerable, you can never be broken.
I was a chubby, class clown in high school. I used humor to protect myself from insecurities, always the first one to highlight my weaknesses. It was a reliable defense mechanism, but I lacked confidence. I had plenty of friends, but they rarely saw the anxious, scared version of me that was well hidden.
For me, wholeness meant being healthy in body, mind, and spirit. You need to build a stable foundation. With my curiosity, a domino effect started that brought me into contact with the tools I needed. First came Taoism, which led to meditation, which led to mindfulness, and on to exercise and healthy eating. My personal kintsugi had started.
A friend and mentor once said something profound while walking in the woods that has stuck with me. He was musing partly to himself, partly to a large oak tree named Chief, and partly to me. He said, “if you are comfortable as and with yourself, everything is an adventure no matter what you’re doing or where you might accidentally end up.” Wholeness is being the candle; and also the mirror that can reflect its light.
2) Clarity
There have been many times in my life where all I could do was sit back and ask myself, “what the hell am I doing here?”
If trying to find wholeness is the call to adventure, then clarity is the adventure itself. The way to clarity is through education, growth, and experience. I quickly realized that however valuable school and books were, my path would be blazed through experience.
There is that quote by J.R.R. Tolkien that has been reproduced ad nauseam on cutesy little wall hangings and bumper stickers. “Not all who wander are lost.” I love this quote too, but…
I wandered. I got really fucking lost. A lot.
I got lost in college, when I dropped out of college and backpacked around Europe, I went back to college, when I dropped out of college again and hitchhiked to Mexico, when I finally graduated and packed up my dog and spent the summer camping out of my truck in national forests across the country, when I worked on farms in North and South America, when I got into drinking plant medicine, and I got really fucking lost when I went on two, ten-day Vipassanna silent meditation retreats.
Throughout it all, I would often return to the thought, “what the hell am I doing here?” Each time, after contemplation, I would come to realize my absurdity and giggle. My absurdity became the absurdity of everything. There is a reason why the Dalai Lama is always laughing.
There are basic universal currents that are carried out on macro and micro levels constantly. With clarity, you can easily flow with these currents. Clarity is being able to see the path ahead, even if it’s not apparent. Moreover, clarity is about knowing the right steps to take. This does not mean that you need to know all the particulars and eventualities of every choice, but rather that you have developed the right insight and intuition to have faith in your decisions.
A good sense of humor helps, too.
3) Belonging
Why am I here? I spent many nights alone in the wilderness, looking up to the sky, pleading for some direction. The answer that always came back was frustrating and straightforward.
We make our own meaning in life.
A medicine man in South America once told me, “when we are born, we have a debt. We repay our debt by being in service to the world. It’s up to us to decide how we do it, but I recommend doing it with joy.”
In the Hero’s Journey, after the trials and tribulations of the quest, the hero often returns to where they started as a changed man/woman. The hero is now a master of two worlds, possessing an elixir to heal their simple village.
The rest of Rilke’s poem goes:
“I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world
I may not complete this last one
but I will give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?”
The more you develop yourself in wholeness and clarity, the broader and more effective your circles will grow — the more potent your elixir will be. You will be a reflection of the best in everyone, and they will rise to meet your perception. It’s up to you to decide if you are the falcon, the storm, or a great song. The world could always use more music.
I don’t have it all figured out. As soon as I think I’ve got something figured out, the world flips topsy-turvy, and I’m back to the beginning again.
What remains are the experiences I’ve lived through and the tools that I’ve sharpened. I find myself being more present in everything I do. Once, the older woman I was staying with on a homestead in Massachusetts asked me, “how do you always know the right thing say? You always find the perfect, innocent thing to make me laugh.”
It’s easy when you’re present in the moment. Just point out the absurdities. Most people are so inside themselves that one little electric shock of humor from the present can wake them up, even if only for a little while.
Like most other lessons I have learned, when it comes to belonging, we must create it for ourselves. Be the glue that binds a community. Realize that in any given moment, you have the power to elevate everything around you through presence and kindness. For me, it means being more generous with my time and my compassion. When I’m with someone, I’m really with them. This carries into my relationship with my girlfriend, my work, and when I volunteer.
Through adventure, misadventure, and an undeniably fun ride, I have developed a sense of internal stillness and contentment. Whether in a quiet forest attending a ten-day silent meditation retreat, in the Paris Métro during rush hour, or in my bed at night, I still feel at home and grateful for this beautiful life. My greatest accomplishment is recognizing how precious this life is and taking nothing for granted. My life is a poem and a wondrous safari.
XOXOXO
Josh
