Triple Down
Whatever your own individual sense of purpose is, now is the time to dig in your heels and bring it into physical existence.
Commuting to work in a daily fog of hypnotic routine, we miss out on the moments that we actually may remember on our deathbeds. To stop and witness the glistening of a still pond at sunset, for example, as my uncle encouraged me to do on a nature walk recently. It snapped me out of a circular rage fit towards my father which I was becoming lost in. I looked at the glistening water and became painfully aware of how far away I was from my physical surroundings.
You know how you know a movie is a good movie? Not because you remember every detail of the plot. You remember the moments. You repeat random lines of dialogue with your friends and reference specific scenes over drinks, which then lead to debating character and actor names. In this movie that is our life, the work commutes will almost certainly be batched by the month’s end. The pattern interrupts are what we remember.
When I began attending Burning Man, one of the more amplified bits of advice veterans would dispense upon us virgins was to embrace the principle of Immediacy. Be ready to diverge from whatever your plans were when the inevitable unexpected adventure happened to drop upon you. To say there are a lot of distractions at Burning Man is a pretty massive understatement. Letting go and surrendering to the experience is certainly one of the most profound takeaways from Burning Man—one most need, I’d say. Particularly if you’ve been lost in a daily fog of work commutes till your first Burn.
I took from the many distractions of Burning Man a different lesson. Burning Man serves as a stand-in thought experiment for life in general, and the distractions at both never run out. Ever. So after we’ve experienced the elation of a few pattern interrupts, what rises to the top and becomes more important than ever is purpose. That’s what happened for me, anyway.
The Default World is going to hell in a hand basket, but I have more clarity than I’ve ever had about my purpose and the direction of my work. I’d felt, since my earliest childhood memories, a calling to leave something of cultural significance before my passing. While I didn’t have total clarity on what form or shape this calling might take, it was more important to me than owning a house and raising a family. I don’t blame my immediate blood family for thinking that I’m confused, lost, and directionless, and I’ve given up trying to explain this to anyone who’s not interested in getting it.
There was a time that it upset me, and there still are times where it still does. But on my most clear days, when I feel most aligned with source energy and the words are flowing like an unobstructed stream in an untouched part of the forest, the feeling I get is one of infinite patience, loving kindness, and compassion. Sure, perhaps I have intimacy issues, trauma, or some other theorized label for why I don’t fit into the mold. There are certainly shitty days where I believe these things. But on my most peaceful in-flow days (which is most days these days), I see the judgments of others, I hear them, I deeply and intentionally consider and entertain them, and then I gently place them on a leaf and watch them float down that stream.
The world seems like it's going to hell in a hand basket. The distractions are, unfortunately, nowhere near as fun as the ones at Burning Man, but they still are distractions. The past couple of months I’ve been hunkered down building out the foundations of my presence as an artist, professional and otherwise. While to the untrained eye it all might seem like photography and podcasts, I have profound clarity on what my ‘job’ is as well as what my real ‘work’ is in this world. I believe strongly that right now it is more important than it has ever been to hunker down on our purpose.
There are forces in the world that want more than anything for us to lose our sense of purpose and fall in line with their version of reality. I believe that right now, in this time, the most powerful revolution is to dig our heels in, roll up our sleeves, and double—nay—triple down on what each of us feels, deep in our hearts, to be our own individual purpose for being here. Be it to be the most amazing father to your son, show up in the most dedicated way for the charity you volunteer for, or write that damn book you've been thinking about writing for the past decade. Locate your purpose, hunker down and put all your life force into it.
None of history's atrocities could've been carried out were they not executed and implemented with the compliance of those who claimed to simply be 'doing their jobs'. I can even see the argument that most if not all of the most horrid things have been implemented by people who believed in what they were doing. Politicians, soldiers, and militia members who espoused with seemingly unwavering conviction that their movement was and is the right one. But I don't believe this is the same as having an individual sense of purpose. It was not their own true calling that brought them there, but a submission or an allegiance to the desire of another, much more passionate manifestation. The desires of a warlord, a strongman, or even an oligarchy. No, I do not believe that an individual's sense of purpose, one who is most aligned with their own highest selves, would succumb to following the vision and orders of another. They are lost souls, desperate for a sense of meaning in a world that betrayed their trust, misinterpreting their life lessons as confirmation of their own powerlessness and victimhood. God has not given anyone orders to smite their neighbor. These are broken people who have convinced themselves that hate is the only way.
Whatever your own individual sense of purpose is, now is the time to dig in your heels and bring it into physical existence. Something inside you still wants to be born. Something yearning to be expressed. Something that transcends even the deepest mistreatment you’ve endured. Something that was there long before this world shoulder-checked you. A thing that remembers the wounds but wasn’t born from them. It still desires to be born. The colors and contours may have evolved as a result of your life's twists and turns, but at its core, it remains pure and unobstructed by our collective trauma. It’s more important than ever to water and nourish it. To double—nay—triple down on your own individual purpose. Whatever it is and whatever it takes. Because the distractions are showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.
🎙️ Take a listen at an episode of Burner Podcast from the archives. Episode 58, entitled Dispatch From Saguaro Man, was recorded in Snowflake, Arizona. We were in a trailer hiding out from the hail and lighting storm.
burnerpodcast.com/previous-episodes/episode-58-dispatch-from-saguaro-man