A Common Courtesy: This is about a 10 to 15 minute read.
Personally I think it’s worth the time, but you should decide for yourself. If yes, great. Thank you in advanced. If not, maybe, you’ll be compelled to come back some time. Either way, it was nice to know you had an option.
—
Around 11:30pm on 06.15.10.
I had a vision of a wise and generous voice, whispering to me in the middle of my listening to @kolks explain with great conviction & clarity, her desire to live
“off the grid.”
The vision reminded me of a wisdom I found a long time ago, noted on paper, but never took the time to shared with anyone.
The wisdom was rooted in creating space for honest dialogue by asking people during conversation “what makes you happy.”
Let me explain a bit before I get to that…
Normally, I am so grow, grown, and growing into the grid (I’m a technorganizer)—
that my primary style of sharing is digitously.
For example, the picture below represents how I’ve long seen New York City:
phylogenetic tree of life. by David Hillis, Derreck Zwickil and Robin Gutell
That’s a phylogenetic tree of life.
I found it via Google Search, after a random thought about what the tree of life would like in 2010.
This is what I put in the search bar.
After using that search term, I found a biochemists tatoo that was in part inspired by the phylogenetic tree of life.
[P.S. I am going to get the same tattoo in August.]
Grow's future tattoo
I’m a biochemist, but I’ve always been fascinated by evolution. Here’s my tattoo representing the tree of life, based loosely on a couple of phylogenetic trees drawn by Ernst Haeckel. Here it is attached to the pictures that inspired it.”–Kevin
While reading his description, my eyes fixed on the term “phylogenetic trees.”
Obviously, I had to google such a profound construction, and I found this:
phylogenetic tree of life. by David Hillis, Derreck Zwickil and Robin Gutell
Do you see all of the skyscrapers in that tree of life?
See where it starts and go? Can you imagine the rhythm rithm? The age of this tree?
I do. I can. I have. Don’t all people see them?
I’ve also seen all the other trees in that tree of life. Due in part to my travels, it has become easier to see them growing everywhere.
You see. I don't look like this to you anymore. Yet, it's still me. That's a key in my hand, in case you were wondering. And those... well those are magnificent tree. [taken during the Stay Inspired "A Pilgrimage to Assisi, Italy." Hosted by the generous Charlie J. Hess & Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement.
That photo is from a Prayer Pilgrimage I was invited to benefit from. It was such a gift. I’ll write about this more another time.
For now, rest your eyes for a moment.
Blink.
Now, blink again.
And turn away from the computer screen for 30 seconds with your eyes closed.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for taking care of your eyes.
Now, in case you haven’t gathered it yet….
That was just a digital experience.
You just also had a digital experience.
It was my life, and I just recorded, recalled, and remembered this well enough to share it with you.
And you made it our life, when you saw value in making the time to read this.
I call this whole process being a digitous technorganizer. It’s a role within the family of cultivators.
Still, even though my attribute is GROW, and I’m open, this @kolks consideration of living an off the grid lifestyle remains elusive to me.
If we wouldn’t have had the internet, wordpress, text edit, computer, html/css/java, could we have had this digital experience together?
If not for being connected, through this wires?
Could we have had this moment? Even spiritually.
I wonder (I hope you do to).
See, I see the divine as connected…. connected to the most high. Not, disjoined, or separated from, but connected.
http://twitter.com/rolandobrown/status/18663475269
“@rolandobrown, recording old scribe wisdom in honor of ancient griots and fishes; etching life force energy conductors on facebook walls & twitter streams.”
You know?
There are lots of ways to connect. digitally, earthly, emotionally, culturally, genetically, universally…
I got it.
And so yeah, I was listening to @kolks talk about what made her Happy.
Words mixed carefully, it was her only special blend of Happiness Advice.
@kolks said she’s happiest working towards being interconnected, and learning to take no more than needed to subsist; be in a constant state of groundation.
Hmmm. Imagine that?
Taking in just enough to remain in being…
Not as in a starving type of being, but an transendant one.
The type of humanity aware of self & neighbor well enough, to draw the exact difference between what is “enough,” and what is “too much.”
Something so simple.
Yet, for me in this age of information age, still something so out of reach.
What do you have too much of? What do you not have enough of? Could you balance this daily?
How’s about this:
What makes you happy?
Let me know, as I’m really asking you.
Thank you.
Ok.
Back to this vision I had.
I had a vision of a wise and generous man telling me “Rolando, be sure to keep asking people what makes them happy. Especially those you can touch that don’t get the chance to talk about happiness that much. And if you remember a parallel, a way to connect their story to a strength, connect the dots. Then offer it to them.”
So, with all of that said:
Here’s some advise I gave myself a few years ago. Some simple advise.
Right around the time when I decided I was going to atone & work towards love:
- Be sure to regularly ask members of your community what makes them happy. Most peoples’ “Happiness” is like dot in the canvas of their lives. Some people have a clear and productive relationship with their dots. Some are still looking for them. Still, regardless of your communities response, always ask. And, always truly listen when they finally feel honest or safe enough to tell you. It’s better to know happiness, than not to.
- Remember as many of these moments of “happiness” as you can. Share them. When you hear something that can be of service to someone you’ve listened to in the past, use your body, voice, hands to close time & space, and introduce these expressions to each other. Travel if need be. Take a walk, a bus, a plane, or a pilgrimage if you must. Make a phone call. You have in this moment, the opportunity to experience the art of listening, well enough to connect the many dots of your life, and the many people you have shared it with. You can for example, remember someone who expressed being in “need;” & connect them with someone else possessing what they are looking for. In my line of work we call this “building bridges.“
- Be sure to allow yourself this same gift, directly. Keep open to the IDEA that you may someday tell another human what makes you happy, and because they have really listened, may be able to meaningfully respond “Yes, I’be glad to help you with that. Let me show you.” Allow yourself to be happy. Makes no good sense to make all these other people happy, and end up miserable for it. Make time for the value of your own happiness.
Many of us aren’t very quick to take our own advise.
I hear you.
With, so many voices in your head? Which way do you go from here?
I hear you.
Often, we should quite our mind, and free ourselves from the little voices in our heads (especially the negative ones).
Still, I do find it important to write these things down. To leave some imprint; some record, some language for later.
Please.
Write notes on napkins, books, sleeves, arms, fingers; with your epiphanies, hopes, dreams, and the things that make you happy.
Many of us write notes to ourselves, and then too quick do we forget them.
File them away. Or send them to the landfill. Tell ourselves we’ve recycled or cut the fat, when really we’ve just decided to throw away the things we believed we could not finish. The many lessons we did not use.
Sometimes, I wonder if we’d be more eco empowered if we just finished the things we started—just finished the thing we started to eat; to grow; to grow into; to grow out of.
Maybe we get use to being busy, or maybe we get used to be comfortable taking ourselves for granted.
We I have been making this effort to be remember this advise. About three years ago, I started towards what I guess you could call NOW.
The present moment.
Artwork by Grow. Photo Top Right: "Towards A Wow: At Camaradas El Barrio" by A.B. Luego / Photo Bottom Right: "Rolando & Sarah: At Cafette in Philly." / Middle Photo: "Charlie's Flowers: DSCN0029.JPG" by Charlie J. Hess on 05/24/2009 at 1:16PM.
{Can’t see this? Click here to see it download}
I made that piece of artwork, while writing this post. I was thinking about different times in my life. The Top Right is Sarah Kolker & I three years go. The photo was taken on our first date at a neighborhood restaurant named {CAMARADAS}.
It was a actually the day of our first date. I wrote a poem in honor of it {click here to read it}. The photo on the Bottom Right was taken by Susan Gran during a birthday dinner at Cafette for Sarah’s brother Isaiah Dessables. It might have actually been our second date, three years later. No, I’m just kidding. The picture is interesting most to me because I just cut my hair short, and it seems (at least when just looking at these two photos), that Sarah & I have kind of gone back to where we started.
The middle photo is part of a series of Flowers captured by Charlie J Hess. He captures photos because it makes him happy. He prints them on cards with his favorite quotes and distributes them for free to his friends and family. Imagine that. Simple.
Sencillos.
And, yes, I’ve listened to many of my people.
I’ve asked them what makes them happy. And connected some of the dots in them through MVMT. Others, not through #MVMT, yet still moved.
And, right now, in this moment, as you read this, I am remembering how good it feels to actually listen, be listened to, and have listened for so many years.
Still.
I am a young man, who while listening to a young woman talk about subsistence, had a vision:
- Be sure to regularly ask members of your community what makes them happy.
- Remember as many of these moments of ”happiness” as you can. Share them.
- Be sure to allow yourself this same gift, directly.
And yes, I’m considering the merits of living “off the grid.”
At least what we call “the grid.”
I’d hope that I could still connect to prayer, GOD and still be of service, as easily offline as I have been online.
-Grow
Ode to all those that help people go towards the things that make them happy.
P.S. Check out these wonderful people too: Stay Inspired
