I saw a guy on the beach yesterday smoking a cigar while getting his fishing rod ready to cast a line into the sea. He looked like a smug Stanley Tucci character in some Meryl Streep movie you’re just too goddamn lazy to switch off. But who knows, maybe he’s actually a nice guy in real life and I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
Either way, this Tucci fellow, in order to relax, and/or feel more like a real man, was willfully pulling cancerous smoke into his body while trying to kill innocent beings for the sheer joy of it. And as I walked past him, I thought of a Facebook memory that popped up for me earlier in the day. It was a screenshot of something I wrote (just in my head at first) while walking along a beach up north on Long Island a few years earlier.
“Humanity will amount to nothing more than a murderous and suicidal plague on the Earth’s surface until the love of love transcends the love of money.”
But in this case you can swap out “selfishness” for “money” because really, whats the fucking difference?
Thankfully though, while I was reading at a park later that day, I saw a monster of a guy, with huge tattooed arms and a menacing beard, wearing one of those front facing knapsack things and inside of it was the most adorable little baby girl you’ve ever seen wearing a perfectly pink little hat. And. He. Just. Loved. Her.
I waved to her and said in the voice I reserve for toddlers and kittens and puppies, “Hello little one! I love your hat.”
And then I looked up to him and said, sans puppy voice, “Hey man, she’s sooo cute.”
He smiled genuinely through his beard of fury and then gave me the most sincere, “Thanks so much man.”
And this, right here, proves the point I’ve been making since the beginning:
Underneath all of humanity’s bullshit, we really just want to love and to be loved. It’s our instinct. It’s our reflex.
You see the toughest looking guys wanting to hold their girlfriend’s hands. Then there’s this Wolverine dude in the park yesterday adjusting his baby’s pink hat to keep the sun out of her eyes. And you always always always hear about people jumping into freezing waters to save absolute strangers from their certain deaths.
Hmm, maybe I’ve been wrong about something all along. I always say that we need to evolve to the point where kindness becomes our set-point if we hope to survive, but maybe it’s actually the opposite.
Maybe we need to devolve instead of evolve. Devolve to our instincts. Our instinct to love. To love all people, fish and everything in between as if they were ourselves.
So, with all of that said, thank you once again for trading your time to read my words and thank you even more for considering them.
And since it’s almost Halloween, here’s a photo of me dressed as Batman. With vampire teeth of course.
“We do not want merely to see beauty… we want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” – C.S. Lewis
That’s exactly it.
Because I, maybe like you, feel a constant longing. A homesickness. A homesickness for a moment that is, well, more real than this current one. A moment that I don’t feel like I’m waiting for something better to come along. And when I turn away from social media and submerge myself in beauty, either as the fully abiding witness or the creator through the means of what seems like divine design, it feels, well, more real.
Like it’s Thanksgiving. And I’m walking into the house I grew up in for the first time in a long time and everyone’s home and happy to see me.
P.S. I am actually drinking coffee in this photo because I hate it in movies or on TV shows when the cups are so obviously empty.
Walking under the moonlight, just out of reach of the breaking waves on the beach tonight, I thought of my dad.
I was sitting with my parents on this exact stretch of beach about fifteen years ago when I spontaneously stood up to take a walk. I made it about a thousand feet away until I got the feeling that my dad was watching me with his giant binoculars which, if it was during WWII, were powerful enough to spot non-submerged German U-boats for many miles.
What did I do about this?
Obviously the only thing that made sense to do in that moment. I stuck my fist up on in the air without turning around and sent him a long distance middle finger.
And an hour later when I made it back to the spot where my parents were still sitting, my dad starting laughing and I knew he received my message.
I smiled and he called me a “pisser” in his Brooklyn accent. I felt that memory like it was yesterday.
But those thoughts lead to others which also feel like yesterday. Those next thoughts arose in me quickly, beyond my control, and by the time I could see them coming around the corner of my mind, it was too late. I had no choice but to think them: My dad was really sick and fell in bathroom and I had to bust in and lift him up because he couldn’t stand anymore and we had to call fire rescue and…
No. That’s enough of that. I’m crying now as I type.
But let me just say this…
And I know you’re expecting me to say something about loving your loved ones while you can and don’t take them for granted etc etc, but since you’re probably reading this on social media, I’m going take this opportunity to address social media.
Don’t let Facebook or Instagram or Dicktock make you feel that something is wrong with you if you’re sad. Or lonely. Or unloved. Or broken. Or scarred from the past. Or like you’re not enough.
I assure you, these attention seeking people (although there are good intentioned ones out there as well) who tell you to just choose happiness all the time as if it’s a just some simple decision we’re too thick-headed to see, have never seen a loved one suffer. I mean, to really fucking suffer. And if they have, they’re 50,000 thousand leagues under the sea of denial about it.
So, don’t let them make you feel bad for feeling bad. It can be bad enough as it is. As you know.
Just let yourself feel how you feel. And then maybe, in time, but not too much of it, turn to gratefulness. Or to forgiveness. Or to gentleness. Or to love. Or to silence and stillness. Or all of these in whatever order feels right.
But don’t do this in efforts to be happy. It won’t work. And you can trust me on this because I’ve tried exactly that countless times and it always fails. Always.
Happiness can’t be the goal of gratitude or forgiveness or silence. The goal of gratitude must be gratitude itself. The goal of forgiveness must be forgiveness. The goal of silence is only to be silent.
Because those things toggle you into the present moment where things are usually a bit more okay. And then from there, maybe happiness will slip under the door of your mind on its own accord. But only when the universe is ready for it to do so. And not a moment sooner.
To close this up, I’ll share with you what I’m most grateful for in this right in this second. I deeply know, in every cell of my body and all of the spaces in between, that good is prevailing.
Even with all of the horror I’ve seen, I know fully that good is prevailing.
Please feel free to know this with me.
love/thanks,
gb
Manywith their periscopes popping through the surface of the water.
Tonight was the third or fourth time I’ve seen Rachel Maddow cry on TV.
Once again, because of the evil machinations of republicans.
Which leads me to what I’ve been meaning to say for a long tome:
We need to stop condoning this. We must not allow ourselves anymore to speak to any friends or family members who still support republicans. It’s time to cut them out of our lives completely.
They need to know, finally, that it’s no longer okay to hurt people. They need to know you will no longer stand for it. They need to be isolated.
It’s time to stop looking the other way because we don’t want to ruffle any feathers. Or because there’s so much obvious history between loved ones.
We are literally in a battle between good and evil and we must put our foot down. Today.
The republicans are, without question, dismantling America.
You don’t think it’s as dire as I say? It’s because you’re not in their crosshairs. Yet.
We must be the change we want to see in the world.
I often feel powerless in this crazy world. So much senseless suffering. Day in and day out. And there’s nothing I can do about it. It could be Afghanistan one day and antivaxers the next.
But one thing I can do is not eat meat, eggs or dairy because I refuse to add more suffering to this life of ours that we all share.
And trust me, I know lots of you roll your eyes at my vegan posts. “Not this shit again. He must think he’s so much better than us.”
Nope. Not at all. But I’m willing to piss off 4000 of you every single day just to reach one of you once.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.
Everyday my mom calls and sweetly asks what I’m doing.
Sweetly I answer, “Nothing.”
She responds, “I’m doing nothing too.”
And then we both sort of laugh because, well, what can you really do in a pandemic?
But today I added, “I have nothing new to tell you but thankfully I have nothing bad to tell you either. We’re both very lucky.”
She agreed.
Although I get bored and a bit lonely at times, I’m grateful to be healthy. And to have food. And for the roof over my head. And for my mom who checks in on me.
And I’m grateful for anyone who takes the time to read these words. And even more grateful if these words remind anyone to be a little grateful for just a few moments today.
To see trump’s three Supreme Court justices today makes me so physically sick. They are a malignant stain on our county. Slow burning cancerous tumors grown from greed, racism, anti-semitism, white supremacy and anti-intellectualism.
And I know I will be judged for saying this, accused once again for being unloving and for being a phony spiritual leader, but I truly hate them. Hate.
And whoever judges me for this can go fuck themselves. You’re a joke to me.
With that, I also hate every single person who enabled this. Everyone single person who voted for trump either time. Everyone who voted for any republican in the last four years (and that’s being gracious). My hate for them is violent and volcanic.
Why am I taking the time to write this when we are such a great moment? The moment when Good prevails over Evil?
To let you know that it’s okay to feel these feelings. To let you know that it’s okay to sidestep anyone who tries to shame you for feeling this way.
We feel this way because we are repelled by injustice. We feel this way because our hearts hurt from the last four years and for what we almost lost.
Friends, I am also writing this to tell you, and to remind myself, that although I hate them, thoroughly, I know it wasn’t their fault.
Unfortunately and fortunately, each of us are doing the best we can in every moment.
And I am just so grateful to be lucky enough to not be like them. I am so lucky and grateful to be fueled by kindness. To be fueled by the fact that we are all connected. So grateful to see myself and the divine in all graced with life.
And I am so grateful that you are lucky enough to be so similar. And we are here together, literally, right now.
We are love. And sometimes love is tough.
But love heals.
Thank you, sincerely, for being with me for the last four years…
love/thanks, gb
P.S. I was just on my knees, crying, when Biden was sworn in.
OMGabe 