0002 | Beautiful people

People are enormous when you unzip them.

In the past week, since reading Fierce Conversations, I have had the incredible fortune to have an amazing conversation with my friend, Lindsey, no fewer than several dozen wildly fantastic conversations with Ben, and a heart-swelling 90-minute FaceTime with my cousin, Jeff. The last conversation was so raw and searching and unbridled that I hung up sobbing, not out of sadness, but because I couldn't stop expanding. This also happens with Ben. I get full and I have to get bigger just to know these people.

In these most recent conversations, I am discovering that I already have in my life the most beautiful beings, and I may be just now meeting them for the first time. While I am sitting with them, listening, inquiring, wanting more of them, they are unfolding right in front of me, and in turn I am expanding to accommodate the depth and force of their beauty.

I forgot to thank Jeffrey for our conversation. I will go back to him and do that. He was so open and so real. He trusted that he could show me the parts of him that he judges the most harshly and that I would still love him. And I do. And here's the thing of it: in that moment of simply listening and letting my heart expand, the significance of my existence also expanded.

Ben and I are re-engaging with the world after nearly a year of quiet isolation in the desert. It occurs to me that doing so is necessary to our very survival. In some cosmic way we are like ants. To an ant no colony means no purpose. With no purpose, life has no significance. They just die. If my purpose is to learn unceasingly, to perpetually evolve, to increase joy, and to decrease suffering, I need engagement, people, a connection to the world around me, generally one person at a time. The cost of it all seems so simple. I am required to show up and listen, to--as much as is possible between humans--see people as they really are. It is in listening and the seeing that I become important.

I have never kept a gratitude journal. While I don't think this log is necessarily that, writing a little bit of all this down feels like the start of a good practice.